Man or Matter: Introduction to a Spiritual Understanding of Nature on the Basis of Goethe's Method of Training Observation and ThoughtLehrs, Ernst
Religion
Man or Matter: Introduction to a Spiritual Understanding of Nature on the Basis of Goethe's Method of Training Observation and Thought
Lehrs, Ernst
Anthroposophy; Cosmology; Goethe, Johann Wolfgang von, 1749-1832
The reason why we usually fail to observe the different kinds of
interplay of the two modes of seeing, when we perceive one or other of
the two categories of colour, is because in ordinary sight both eyes
exercise each of the two activities without our becoming aware which is
the leading one in a particular eye. If, however, one has come to a
real experience of the inner polarity of the visual act, one needs only
a little practice to realize the distinction. For example, if one looks
at the blue sky, notably at noon-time, on the side away from the sun,
or at the morning or evening sky, shining yellow and red, one quickly
becomes conscious of how our eyes take hold of the particular
contribution which Light and Dark make to one or other of the two
colour appearances.
*
In the natural course of our argument we had to keep at first to the
appearance of colours as they come freely before us in space. The
results we have obtained, however, hold good equally well for the
permanent tints of material objects, as the following example will
show.
A fact known to science is that red and blue surface colours, when
illumined by light of steadily diminishing intensity, are seen to
reverse their normal ratio of brightness. This phenomenon can be seen
in nature, if, for instance, one observes a bed of blue and red flowers
in the fading evening light and compares the impression with that which
the same flowers make in bright daylight. If the phenomenon is
reproduced artificially, the actual transition from one state to the
other can be clearly observed. The easiest way is to place a red and a
blue surface side by side under an electric light whose intensity can
be gradually lessened by means of a sliding resistance. Here, as much
as in the natural phenomenon, our reason finds it difficult to
acknowledge that the surface gleaming in a whitish sheen should be the
one which ordinarily appears as darkling blue, and that the one
disappearing into darkness should be the surface which normally
presents itself as radiant red.
This riddle is readily solved if we apply what we have learnt about the
particular shares of lightness and darkness in these two colours, and
if we link this up with the respective forms of seeing exercised by our
two eyes. To the dim light, clearly, our eyes will respond more with
the 'left-eyed' than with the 'right-eyed' form of vision. Now we know
that it is 'left-eyed' vision which is roused by the
lightness-component in blue and the darkness-component in red. It is
only to be expected, therefore, that these elements should become
conspicuous when in the dim light our seeing is mainly 'left-eyed'.
This solution of the problem makes us realize further, that the laws
which Goethe first found for the coming into appearance of colours
freely hovering in space are indeed applicable to the fixed material
colours as well.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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