Seeing as 'Deed' - I

Having made ourselves so far acquainted with the fundamentals of
Goethe's approach to the outer phenomena of colour involved in the
spectrum, we will leave this for a while to follow Goethe along another
no less essential line of inquiry. It leads us to the study of our own
process of sight, by means of which we grow aware of the optical facts
in outer space.

*

The importance which Goethe himself saw in this aspect of the optical
problem is shown by the place he gave it in the didactic part of his
Farbenlehre. The first three chapters, after the Introduction, are
called 'Physiological Colours', 'Physical Colours', and 'Chemical
Colours'. In the first chapter, Goethe summarizes a group of phenomena
which science calls 'subjective' colours, since their origin is traced
to events within the organ of sight. The next chapter deals with an
actual physics of colour - that is, with the appearance of colours in
external space as a result of the refraction, diffraction and
polarization of light. The third chapter treats of material colours in
relation to chemical and other influences. After two chapters which
need not concern us here comes the sixth and last chapter, entitled
'Physical-Moral Effect of Colour' ('Sinnlich-sittliche Wirkung der
Farben'), which crowns the whole. There, for the first time in the
history of modern science, a bridge is built between Physics,
Aesthetics and Ethics. We remember it was with this aim in view that
Goethe had embarked upon his search for the solution of the problem of
colour.