controversies. In looking back on that part of the Farbenlehre which he
had himself called 'Polemical' in the title, he said to Eckermann: 'I
by no means disavow my severe dissections of the Newtonian statements;
it was necessary at the time and will also have its value hereafter;
but at bottom all polemical action is repugnant to my nature, and I can
take but little pleasure in it.'

The reason why Goethe chose optics as the field of conflict, and
devoted to it more than twenty years of research and reflexion, amidst
all the other labours of his rich life, lay certainly in his individual
temperament - 'zum Sehen geboren, zum Schauen bestellt'.1 At the same
time one must see here a definite guidance of humanity. Since the hour
had struck for mankind to take the first step towards overcoming the
world-conception of the one-eyed, colour-blind onlooker, what step
could have been more appropriate than this of Goethe's, when he raised
the eye's capacity for seeing colours to the rank of an instrument of
scientific cognition?

In point of fact, the essential difference between Goethe's theory of
colour and the theory which has prevailed in science (despite all
modifications) since Newton's day, lies in this: While the theory of
Newton and his successors was based on excluding the colour-seeing
faculty of the eye, Goethe founded his theory on the eye's experience
of colour.

*

In view of the present scientific conception of the effect which a
prismatic piece of a transparent medium has on light passing through
it, Goethe's objection to Newton's interpretation and the conclusions