Goethe's Theory of ColoursGoethe, Johann Wolfgang von
Philosophy
Goethe's Theory of Colours
Goethe, Johann Wolfgang von
Color
The chemist who looks upon colours as indications by which he may
detect the more secret properties of material things, has hitherto
found much inconvenience in the denomination and description of
colours; nay, some have been induced after closer and nicer examination
to look upon colour as an uncertain and fallacious criterion in
chemical operations. Yet we hope by means of our arrangement and the
nomenclature before alluded to, to bring colour again into credit,
and to awaken the conviction that a progressive, augmenting, mutable
quality, a quality which admits of alteration even to inversion, is not
fallacious, but rather calculated to bring to light the most delicate
operations of nature.
In looking a little further round us, we are not without fears
that we may fail to satisfy another class of scientific men. By an
extraordinary combination of circumstances the theory of colours
has been drawn into the province and before the tribunal of the
mathematician, a tribunal to which it cannot be said to be amenable.
This was owing to its affinity with the other laws of vision which the
mathematician was legitimately called upon to treat. It was owing,
again, to another circumstance: a great mathematician had investigated
the theory of colours, and having been mistaken in his observations as
an experimentalist, he employed the whole force of his talent to give
consistency to this mistake. Were both these circumstances considered,
all misunderstanding would presently be removed, and the mathematician
would willingly co-operate with us, especially in the physical
department of the theory.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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