Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 17.djvu/229

 which had previously converted the world to Newton's views, on appealing to the mind of Goethe, produced a theory of light and colors in violent antagonism, to that of Newton.

Goethe prized the "Farbenlehre" as the most important of his works. "In what I have done as a poet," he says to Eckermann, "I take no pride, but I am proud of the fact that I am the only person in this century who is acquainted with the difficult science of colors." If the importance of a work were to be measured by the amount of conscious labor expended in its production, Goethe's estimate of the "Farbenlehre" would probably be correct. The observations and experiments there recorded astonish us by their variety and number. The amount of reading which he accomplished was obviously vast. He pursued the history of optics, not only along its main streams, but on to its remotest rills. He was animated by the zeal of an apostle, for he believed that a giant imposture was to be overthrown, and that he was the man to accomplish the holy work of destruction. He was also a lover of art, and held that the enunciation of the true principles of color would, in relation to painting, be of lasting importance. Thus positively and negatively he was stimulated to bring all the strength he could command to bear upon this question.

The greater part of the first volume is taken up with Goethe's own experiments, which are described in nine hundred and twenty paragraphs duly numbered. It is not a consecutive argument, but rather a series of jets of fact and logic emitted at various intervals. I picture the poet in that troublous war-time, walking up and down his Weimar garden, with his hands behind his back, pondering his subject, throwing his experiments and reflections into these terse paragraphs, and turning occasionally into his garden-house to write them down. This first portion of the work embraces three parts, which deal respectively with—Physiological or Subjective Colors, with Physical or Prismatic Colors, and with Chemical Colors and Pigments. To these are added a fourth part, bearing the German title "Allgemeine Ansichten nach innen"; a fifth part, entitled "Nachbarliche Verhältnisse," neighboring relations; and a sixth part, entitled "Sinnlich-sittliche Wirkung der Farbe," sensuously-moral effect of colors. It is hardly necessary to remark that some of these titles, though doubtless pregnant with meaning to the poet himself, are not likely to commend themselves to the more exacting man of science.

The main divisions of Goethe's book are subdivided into short sections, bearing titles more or less shadowy from a scientific point of view: Origin of White; Origin of Black; Excitement of Color; Heightening; Culmination; Balancing; Reversion; Fixation; Mixture real; Mixture apparent; Communication actual; Communication apparent. He describes the colors of minerals, plants, worms, insects, fishes, birds, mammals, and men. Hair on the surface of the human body he considers indicative rather of weakness than of strength. 