Goethe's entoptische farben and the problem of polarity

Frederick Burwick

pp. 29-44

in: Frederick Amrine, Francis J. Zucker, Harvey Wheeler (eds), Goethe and the sciences, Berlin, Springer, 1987

Abstract

I am anxious to learn the specific Objections of the Mathematicians to Goethe’s Farbenlehre, as far as it is an attack on the assumptions of Newton. To me, I confess, Newton’s positions, first of a Ray of light, as a physical synodical Individuum, secondly, that specific individua are co-existent (by what copula?) in this complex yet divisible Ray; thirdly, that the Prism is a mere mechanic Dissector of this Ray; and lastly, that Light, as the common result, is = confusion; have always, and years before I ever heard of Göthe, appeared monstrous FICTIONS! — and in this conviction I became perfectly indifferent, as to the forms of their geometrical Picturability. The assumption of the Thing, Light, where I can find nothing but visibility under given conditions, was always a stumbling-block to me. Before my visit to Germany in September, 1798, I had adopted (probably from Behmen’s Aurora, which I had conjured over at School) the idea that Sound was = Light under the praepotence of Gravitation, and Color = Gravitation under the praepotence of Light: and I have never seen the reason to change my faith in this respect (1959, 4, pp. 750–751).

Cited authors

Goethe Johann Wolfgang