Still, there was one thing he took home with him as a result of his
labours. He had grown convinced that 'the first approach to colours as
physical phenomena had to be sought from the side of their occurrence
in nature, if one would gain an understanding of them in relation to
art'.

Back at home, he strove to recollect the theory of Newton as it was
being taught in schools and universities - namely, that 'colours in
their totality are contained in light'. Hitherto he had had no occasion
to doubt the correctness of this theory. Like everyone else, he had
heard it expounded in lectures as an incontestable result of empirical
observation, though without this ever having been shown to him by way
of experiment. He convinced himself by consulting a manual that his
recollection was correct, but at the same time he found that the theory
there set forth gave no help in answering his questions.5 So he decided
to examine the phenomena for himself.

For this purpose he borrowed a set of prisms from a friend living in
near-by Jena, the physicist, Büttner. Since, however, he had at that time
no opportunity of arranging a dark chamber on Newton's lines, where the
necessary ray of light from a tiny hole in the window-covering was sent
through a prism, he postponed the whole thing, until in the midst of
all his many other interests and duties it was forgotten. In vain Büttner
pressed many times for the return of the prisms; at last he sent a
mutual acquaintance with the injunction not to return without them.
Goethe then searched for the long-neglected apparatus and determined to
take a rapid glance through one of the prisms before he gave them back.

He recalled dimly his pleasure as a boy at the vision of the world
given him through a bit of similarly shaped glass. 'I well remember