A Spectrum of Belief Goethe's Republic' Versus Newtonian Despotism'

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A Spectrum of Belief: Goethe's 'Republic' versus Newtonian 'Despotism'Author(s): Myles W. JacksonReviewed work(s):Source: Social Studies of Science, Vol. 24, No. 4 (Nov., 1994), pp. 673-701Published by: Sage Publications, Ltd.Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/370268 .

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* ABSTRACT

This paper offers a contextualized study of Goethe's Zur Farbenlehre.

Goethe's work on colour theory did not merely depict his disdain for the

Newtonian doctrine of light and colours: it illustrated his opposition to two

extreme forms of politics apparent during the first decade of the

nineteenth century - unenlightened despotism and anarchy. Goethe's

prismatic games offered a more accessible epistemology to a wider

audience. Hence, he linked what he considered to be the closed circles of

interpretation of Newtonianism to Catholicism and the Illuminati. He

wished to establish a 'republic of colour theory', in order to subvert the

hegemonic control which the Newtonians had established in optics. By

using both the prismatic games and the history which Goethe himself

provided in Zur Farbenlehre, this paper offers an account of how politicalnarratives shape the meaning of experiment.

A Spectrum of Belief: Goethe's 'Republic'versus Newtonian 'Despotism'

Myles W. Jackson

Goethe's polemic against the Newtonian doctrine of light and

colours is well known. Historians and scientists providing disciplin-

ary histories of science and literature have usually interpreted his

arguments as an episode in the long-running struggle of Romantic

poetry against physical theory.1 Unfortunately, such accounts

often seeksimply

to vindicate or to debunk Goethe, and thus fail

to take into account the peculiar history of the polemic which

Goethe himself provided in his Zur Farbenlehre. This paperconcerns itself with how Goethe's history, as presented in the

historical part of Zur Farbenlehre, structured his polemic againstNewton. A more richly contextualized account of Goethe's assault

on Newtonian optics challenges the conventional dichotomies of

poetry and physics, revealing instead not just the politics of

knowledge, but its supposed polity.

Goethe, as we shall see, linked Newton's Opticks and itsfollowers to tyranny and contrasted such a tyranny with his own

Social Studies of Science (SAGE, London, Thousand Oaks and New Delhi),Vol. 24 (1994), 673-701



Social Studies of Science

theory of freedom. In the same fashion, Goethe attacked the

private knowledgewithin the illuminated circles of the late

Enlightenment. He countered such knowledge with a more access-

ible epistemology, as reflected in the ease of his colour games and

his assault on the privacy of Newtonian prisms. And yet he

cautioned against that other form of political extremism, anarchy,which was the basis of Friedrich Schlegel's early Romantic philoso-

phy. Thus the Goethean depiction of nature stood between, and

was opposed to, both Newtonian tyranny and early Romantic

anarchy. His views on nature contrasted enlightened despotism,

which he considered to be a legitimate form of government, withunenlightened despotism, which he equated with tyranny. Finally,Goethe drew upon the history which he provided in order to

respecify the Newtonian spectrum. In doing so, he was attemptingto illustrate nature's laws and inherent order, and to show that the

spectrum could be made easily and explained easily as the productof his own colour games. Prisms were, after all, crucial instruments

of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. His use of prisms

provides us with a picture of how political narratives shape themeaning of experiment.

The Cultural Context of Goethe's Colour Theory

Rupert Matthaei has divided Goethe's work on colour theory into

four chronological categories which have, save some minor

alterations, been generally accepted by other Goethe scholars:2

1791-95, which witnessed the writing, publication and reception of

Beitrage zur Opiik; 1795-1810, when Goethe prepared and pub-lished Zur Farbenlehre; 1810-20, which saw his work on entropic

phenomena; and 1820-32, when he engaged with Purkinje's work

on colour perception, elaborated his research on physiologicalcolours and reworked his study on chromatism. This essay will

deal primarily with the first two periods.Goethe began his study of colours after returning from his

Italian journeys by using arbitrarilya prism lent to him by Buttner,Professor of Physics at Jena. Buttner had sent an assistant to ask

for the return of the prisms which he had lent to Goethe some time

before. In haste, Goethe picked out one of them and looked at a

white wall through it. Contrary to the expectations of most

experimental natural philosophers of the period, he was amazed to

674



Jackson: Goethe & Newton: A Spectrum of Belief

see that the wall still appeared white. No colour was generated,unless one looked at a boundary of black and white. With that

single observation Goethe embarked in 1791 on his now infamous

critique of Newton and his disciples.The last decade of the eighteenth century was one of Goethe's

most prolific periods. During that time he was both scientifically

engaged and politically active. The 1790s witnessed the publicationof the GroJ3-Cophta,Reinecke Fuchs, Wilhelm Meisters Lehrjahre,Die Horen (with Friedrich Schiller), Xenien with Schiller and the

Die Propylaen with Schiller and Heinrich Meyer, which attacked

the German Gothic Revival spearheaded by Schlegel. Unter-haltungen deutscher Ausgewanderten and Hermann und Dorothea

depicted his disdain for the French Revolution. Goethe, PrivyCouncillor and supporter of enlightened despotism, never was,unlike many of his German colleagues, a proponent of the

Revolution. Also during this decade he published his Beitrdge zur

Optik, Die Metamorphose der Pflanzen and wrote most of his

morphological treatises.3

During the Battle of Jena on 14 October 1806, Goethe's life wasjeopardized by French troops. The ensuing years were to see the

eventual takeover of Goethe's world by Napoleon's forces and the

enforcement of the Code Napoleon. This take over was generallyviewed at the time as the final result of the French Revolution, an

uprising which the early Romantics not only originally strongly

supported, but also wished to bring about in Germany. Zur

Farbenlehre was written during the Napoleonic Wars and their

aftermath, and thus reflects what Goethe claimed to be the violent

consequences of tyranny and revolution.Goethe's colour theory was inextricablyembedded in Weimarian

culture of the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries.

Goethe's major bugbears during those two decades were: the

French Revolution and the Illuminati's support for the insurrec-

tion; the early Romantics' Naturphilosophien and their conversion

to Catholicism; and the Newtonians. In Goethe's eyes these

concerns were all interrelated. In 1824 he told Eckermann that:

To make an epoch in the world, two things are notoriously essential - a good

head, and a large inheritance. Napoleon inherited the French Revolution, . . .

Luther, the darkness of the Popes and I, the errors of the Newtonian theory.4

Goethe loathed the French Revolution, Catholicism and the

Newtonian theory of light and colours.

675




Rhetoric of the French Revolution in Goethe's Colour

Theory

Goethe's Zur Farbenlehre was much more than an overt attack on

Newtonian optics. It was a subversion of the 'master' Newton bythe 'dilettante' Goethe, and was just as concerned with overthrow-

ing the 'mechanical philosophy'5 as it was with toppling a danger-ous political ideology. Goethe claimed that incorrect theories of

nature (such as the mechanical philosophy) were tantamount to

politically dangerous ideologies (such as tyranny and anarchy).6

Despite his abhorrence of revolutions, Goethe felt justified inlaunching one against Newton's tyranny. In a letter to J.F.

Reichardt dated 30 May 1791, he wrote:

Of all of my projects, the one which interests me most is a new theory of light,shade and colours. If I am not mistaken, sometimes even revolutions must come

about in the studies of nature and art.7

Although Goethe did not support the Revolution, he also did not

support the tyranny of the ancien regime. Indeed, he blamed theRevolution on the French ruling class. Normally he favoured

reform over revolution. He proclaimed publicly that Newton was a

tyrant who enslaved nature and gave his theories and hypothesesthe status of 'truth' which only she and her phenomena deserve.8

In his preface to Zur Farbenlehre, he writes:

We compare Newton's theory of colour to an old castle which was constructed

by the builder with a youthful vigour and was enlarged and furnished over and

over again according to the needs of the times and the state of affairs. It wasfortified and rendered safe in response to hostilities and feuds. . . . One dug, as

was necessary, deeper trenches, increased the heights of the walls and added

towers, windows and embrasures.9

Goethe argued that Newton, the malevolent master, had used

social institutions to support his theories on optics. He claimed

that Newton fashioned himself as the single authority on optics by

using English prisms which were too small to produce phenomena

which could counter his hypotheses,10 and by waiting until 1704,one year after being elected president of the Royal Society when

his authority was greatly enhanced, to publish his Opticks.11Goethe countered Newton with a benevolent dilettantism.12 In

doing so, he drew upon a representation of the dilettante that

belonged to a broader cultural tradition, depicting the fight of

676




savants against tyrannic dogmatists and obscurantists. Goethe

judgedNewton as an enthusiast, just as Kant accused

Swedenborg,and Lichtenberg condemned Lavater.'3 He wished to overthrow

Newton's optical theories by guiding his readers to help nature

reveal herself to them. His essay 'invites the reader to consult

Nature herself'.14 He did not wish to replace one tyrannicalview of nature with another. He writes in the preface to Zur

Farbenlehre:

Should we succeed, by cheerful application of all possible strength and skill, in

razing this Bastille, and in gaining a free space, it is by no means our intent tocover the site again and encumber it with a new structure. Rather, we proposeto make use of this area for the purpose of displaying a pleasing and varied

series of illustrative figures.15

The reference to the French Revolution is clear. Goethe equatedthe Newtonian doctrine with the ideology of the ancien regime,

thereby reversing his position on revolutions in his work on colour

theory. His botanical, morphological and geological writings

otherwise indicated a firm belief in a dynamically balanced naturein which cataclysmic events were either conspicuously absent or

de-emphasized.16Similarly, his political writings resolutely opposedrevolutions. Revolutions were only acceptable for Goethe if theywere directed against unenlightened despotism. This was, for

Goethe, a unique position, but he needed to adopt such a stance

since he claimed that colour theory, unlike morphology, botany or

geology, had been subjugated by the tyranny of one view,Newtonianism.

The German Newtonians

Much of Goethe's diatribe against Newton was directed more

specifically against the German Newtonians. Indeed, he blamed

the spread of Newtonianism in Germany on the German aristocratic

courts which mimicked English and French science in particular,

and culture in general. Interestingly, Goethe was at this pointeffacing his own courtly status. It was the aristocrats of Gottingen,Cassel and southern Germany who had imported the Newtonian

mechanical philosophy.17 For example, Goethe asserted, correctlyas it turns out, that G.E. Hamberger was appointed by the Gotha

court in order to instruct court members on Newton's experi-

677




ments. 8 Hamberger based his work on the heterogeneity of lightand Newton's experiments.19

In his section 'Deutsche Gelehrte Welt' of the historical part of

Zur Farbenlehre, Goethe provided a compendium of optical texts

written by Germans during the eighteenth century. The earliest

Newtonian reading of optics published on German soil was

Johannes Wenceslaus Caschulius's Elementa Physicae (Jena,

1718). Christian Wolff claimed to have proven a priori the

heterogenity of light h la Newton, in his VerniiftigteGedanken von

den Wirkungen der Natur of 1723. Wolff's fifth edition of 1746

explained colour totally in accordance with Newton, and evenappealed to Newton's second part of the crucial experiment to

back his claims. Samuel Christian Hollmann's Physica: Introduc-

tionis in universam Philosophiam Tom. HI,published in Gottingenin 1737, presented Newton's work as the basis for optics. Holl-

mann's later work, Primae physicae experimentalis lineae (1742,1749, 1753, 1765), still upheld Newton's doctrine of refrangibility,but much more reservedly than his earlier works.20 Johann

Andreas Segner's Einleitung in die Naturlehre (Gottingen, 1746)depicted Newton's optical experiments and his explanations.

Segner's figures were copied directly from Newton's Opticks.21Johann Peter Eberhard's Erste Grunde der Naturlehre (Halle,

1753) provided a modification of Newton's doctrine. However, in

his Sammlung der ausgemachten Wahrheiten der Naturlehre

(1755), Eberhard claimed that the Newtonian doctrine was 'estab-

lished truth'.22 He criticized Castel's attack against Newton, since

the Frenchman did not prove anything mathematically. Goethe

responded to Eberhard's criticism: 'what wonderful expressions! -as if there were no accuracy other than a mathematical one'.23 It

was precisely this privileging of mathematics which Goethe wished

to subvert. Jacob Friedrich Maler's Physik (Karlsruhe, 1757) and

Berhard Grant's Praelectiones encyclopaedicae in physicam experi-mentalem (Erfurt, 1770) were, according to Goethe, short and

simple restatements of Newton. Johann Christian Polycarp Erxle-

ben's influential Anfangsgrunde der Naturleben of 1772 depicted

the Newtonian doctrine of optics. Schmahling's Naturlehre furSchulen (Gottingen & Gotha, 1774) was, in Goethe's eyes, the

normal 'StoBgebet' ('fast and fervent prayer'). Similarly, Johann

Lorenz Bockmann's Naturlehre of 1775 was 'the same old

song'.24Goethe continued to list contributors to Newton's canon:

678




Wenceslaus Johann Gustav Karsten's Naturlehre (1781), C.G.

KraBenstein'sVorlesungen

iiber dieExperimentalphysik (Copen-hagen 1782), W.J.G. Karsten's Anleitung zur gemeinnutzlichen

Kenntnif3der Natur (Halle, 1783), Johann Philipp Hobert's Grun-

dri3f der Naturlehre (1789), Anton Bruchhausen's Institutiones

physicae (Mainz, 1790), Johann Baptisten Horvath's Elementa

physicae (Budae, 1790), which Goethe claimed was telling 'the

same old story', Matthaus Pankl's Compendium institutionum

physicarum Pars I. (1793) and A.W. Hauch's Anfangsgriinde der

Experimentalphysik (Schleswig, 1795).25

These were Goethe's enemies:26 the followers of Newton whoinfiltrated the schools and did not permit any anti-Newtonian view

of the world to prosper.27 Goethe went on to attribute the

diffusion of Newton's doctrine throughout Germany specifically to

the anglophilic Academy of Sciences at G6ttingen.28 Hollmann,

Segner, Kastner, Meister, Erxleben, Mayer and Lichtenberg were

the 'Catholic Priests' who kept the canon holy.Goethe initially attempted to win over the Gottingen physicist,

Lichtenberg, but the Newtonian failed to take Goethe's viewsseriously.29 Goethe could not convince Lichtenberg that the

difficulties which the Newtonian doctrine had in explainingcoloured

shadows mandated the denial of Newton and embrace of his

colour theory.30 During the second half of the eighteenth century,'the Newtonian rhetorical rubbish was preached from this pointonwards from all German cathedrals'.31

The Closed Circles of Interpretation: The Newtonians

and Illuminati

Because academic institutions such as Gottingen accepted the

Newtonian doctrine of colour theory and light on faith, the

Newtonian 'court aristocrats', in Goethe's view, disallowed any

interpretation which did not grant Newtonian optics the status of

truth. Hence, Goethe objected to what he referred to as an innercircle of Newtonians to which he did not, and could not, belong:

no aristocratic presumption has ever looked down on those who were not of its

order with such intolerable arrogance as that betrayed by the Newtonian school

in deciding on all that had been done in earlier times and all that was done

around it.32

679




The German Newtonians had excluded Goethe from the elite

order of Naturforscher by ignoring his work. They determined who

had access to the court of natural phenomena. The formulation

of Goethe's condemnation of the Newtonians is striking for it

seems that Goethe, Privy Councillor and defender of enlightened

despotism, had shifted his political stance. But since he was

battling the hegemony of Newtonianism in colour theory, he

needed to legitimize his dissenting voice by evoking the image of a

republic. Colour theory, unlike the Duchy, required dissenters in

order to expose the Newtonian tyranny. The Duchy, according to

Goethe, had a legitimate ruler, the enlightened despot, Duke CarlAugust. Goethe was taking a stance here very similar to the stance

of the members of the French Republic of Letters during the

Enlightenment.33 As the editor of the Histoire de la Republiquedes Lettres en France reported:

In the midst of all governments . .. the majority of them despotic, governed by

sovereigns or magistrates whose authority extends over people and property,there exists an empire which holds sway over the mind, [an empire] that we

honour with the name Republic, because it preserves a measure of indepen-dence, and because it is almost its essence to be free.34

Members of this meritocratic order deliberately refrained from

having aristocratic judges judicate their achievements. Instead,

they had a peer review system.35 They frowned upon having an

'inner circle' amongst them. Once an individual could prove to the

group that his merit was sufficient to be accepted into the Republicof Letters, he was treated equally. This was precisely Goethe's

view.36 He wanted to establish a republic in colour theory so that a

group of learned investigators of nature could voice their opinions.Goethe's objection to what he considered to be the exclusive-

ness of Newtonians37 corresponded to a more general social

philosophy. His response to the Illuminati of the Weimar lodge of

the Freemasons mirrored his criticism of a closed inner circle of

Newtonians. He became a member of this lodge in 1780, and

became a Master Mason in 1782. He even became an Illuminist in

February of 1783.38 He sought in the Weimar lodge what hebelieved to be the social egalitarianism and fraternity of the

bourgeoisie. All of the leading intellectuals of his age were

members, including Wieland and Herder. But shortly after joiningthe Illuminati, Goethe became increasingly disappointed. The

Illuminati had not been what he had hoped for. Indeed, in 1784, it

680




became clear from the Bavarian Illuminati that there was a

republican spirit kindlingin the

lodgeswhich threatened rulers of

German speaking duchies and empires. Goethe, with the backingof the Duke, ordered the immediate closing of the lodges in the

Duchy. He vehemently opposed the proposal to open a Masonic

lodge in Jena in April of 1789. The Anna Amalia Lodge of

Weimar was not permitted to reopen until 1808.39 Throughout1789, Goethe spoke out against the inner circles of secrecy in his

articles in the Allgemeine Literaturzeitungand his lectures at the

University of Jena. He thought those societies to be politically

dangerous. He was to claim later that it was these types of societieswhich had led to the French Revolution.40 In 1790, Goethe

published a Lustspiel, entitled Der Grof3-Cophta (The Grand

Cophta), which satirized the aristocracy's predilection for secret

societies, particularly their obsession with Count Cagliostro, the

Italian charlatan, who was the rage of Europe in the late 1770s.

Thus even as early as 1790, just before Goethe began writing

Beitrage zur Optik, he strongly opposed the existence of secret

societies. What Goethe objected to in the early days of theRevolution was the hegemonic discourse and the privileged inter-

pretation of the closed circle of revolutionaries.41 I discuss the

importance of interpretation in Goethe's theory of colour below.

Goethe: The Luther of Colour Theory

Goethe's first step in usurping Newton's authority was to give an

historical account of how one obtains authority and how one goesabout subverting it.42 Goethe did not make Newton's authorityself-evident, but rather was interested in analyzing how Newton

fashioned himself as the single authority on optics.43 Hence, a

section of the historical part of Zur Farbenlehre is entitled

authority (Authoritat). The objective of Goethe's historical part of

his colour theory was, in part, to illustrate how much of his own

ideas about colour had been previously posited, particularlyby the

Greeks. Goethe, as many others before him had done, was usingthe genre of history to legitimize his Naturforschung. He wished to

claim that Newton's inferior methodology of investigating nature

was a result of neglecting history. He wrote that a proper history of

colour theory could not be written as long as the Newtonians were

inower.44n power.

681




The history of authority fascinated Goethe. He saw the historyof science in

general,and of colour

theoryin

particular,as the

establishment of authority.45 He claimed that the next historical

phase was the dissolution of authority by members of society who

questioned the use of canonical texts.46 He believed that a conflict

arose between authority and the 'action of the self' (Selbsttitigkeit)

during the first half of the sixteenth century. By the end of that

century, according to Goethe, mankind began to liberate himself

from the shackles of authority: 'the aversion to authority became

stronger, and just as it was protested in religion, there was a

protest in the sciences'.47 His reference to the Reformation isnoteworthy, since he wished to bring about a reformation in

Naturforschung.Goethe believed that the Reformation came about through the

conscious subversion of the canonical texts of the Roman Catholic

Church.48By destroying the hegemony of the Church Fathers over

the Eucharist, as well as by undermining their status of offering

privileged interpretations of biblical scriptures, Luther, according

to Goethe, created a much more egalitarian religion.49 With theadvent of the printing press, Bibles were printed en masse in the

vernacular. The increase in audience necessarily resulted in an

increase in the number of interpretations. This is precisely what

Goethe was aiming for in the field of colour theory. Hence,Goethe's Zur Farbenlehre is shrouded in a religious rhetoric.

As Albrecht Schone has shown, Goethe portrayed the New-

tonian doctrine as a closed circle of Catholic priests who controlled

the interpretation of nature. Goethe portrayed himself as a late

eighteenth- and early nineteenth-century Luther who wanted toreform colour theory.50

Goethe described the community of German Newtonians dis-

cussed above as 'the darkest kingdom of monks' ever assembled

on German soil.51 They were often referred to as Newton's

'faithfuls' or 'disciples'.52 He ridiculed these disciples for not

having their own 'eyes and ears'. They simply 'recited the old

creed as they learned it from the Master'.53 Any critiques against

Newton were considered 'blasphemous'.54 Goethe claimed thatNewton's disciples distanced themselves from Mariotte's critiquesof Newton's experiments 'as the Church attempted to remove its

articles of faith from nosy heretics'.55 These Newtonians formed a

'sect' based on 'the old confession' which forbade dissent.56

This 'ruling church of the darkened chamber' was tantamount

682




to the Inquisition.57 Newton's experimentum crucis was the pro-cedure

wherebythe researcher tortured nature on the rack in order to elicit a confession which

the investigator had already anticipated. Only nature itself resembles a steadfast

and noble-minded person, who under all forms of torture persists in the Truth.

If something else [other than the Truth] is recorded in the proceedings, then the

inquisitor heard wrong, or the recorder wrote it down incorrectly.58

Goethe's condemnation of the Newtonians' 'Catholic' behaviour

was not limited to his optical treatises, but spilled over into manyof his poems and correspondence.59 In 'Zweifel des Beobachters'Goethe wrote: 'That [Newton's crucial experiment] is a priestlyinvasion because the Church divided You, God, in three, as theydivided Light into seven'.6

Goethe fashioned himself as the liberator of light by reformingcolour theory. Schone has convincingly shown that Goethe

employed Luther's own Reformation rhetoric throughout Die

Farbenlehre.61He protested 'againstthe Pope's empire (Papstthum)'

by 'posting theses' on the doors of the disciples.62 He foughtagainst 'Catholic priests' superstitions which wrapped the world in

darkness'.63He fought against Johann Karl Fischer's Lehrbuch der

mechanischen Naturlehre which 'has given the Newtonian error a

seal of academic approval, like a Roman Priest preaching over and

over againwith the greatest delight the doctrine of transubstantiation

and the unsullied conception of the Holy Mother'.64Goethe wrote

to his long-time friend, the musician Carl Friedrich Zelter, that the

opponentsof his colour

theorybehaved 'like Catholic

priestsfrom

the Tridentine Council who wanted to refute a Protestant'.65

The Open Access of Goethe's Colour Theory

Goethe wished to break the hold of the Newtonians who held the

privileged interpretation of colour. Goethe's open epistemologywas not simply a rhetorical device against the Newtonians. He

practised what he preached. Goethe played an instrumental role ineducating the Handwerker in various scientific enterprises. He

organized free public lectures for the workers, given by chemists

and mining advisers such as Scherer.66 By offering his study of

colour to artisans such as the dyers and tanners, Goethe made the

power of interpretation more accessible.67 He compared the dyers

683




who did not wish to question the authority of Newtonian colour

theoryto a 'Catholic Christian'

(catholischer Christ),since

theyhad spoken of the doctrine of dyeing with total reverence without

considering what the practical manipulations (praktischen Hand-

griffen) of the theory were. He criticized this attitude by assertingthat it reminded him of a 'Catholic Christian' who, 'every time he

enters the temple, sprinkles Holy Water on himself and bows to

the Holy. And perhaps, without any special devotion, discusses

his concerns with his friends, or attends to his love affairs

(Liebesabenteuern) there'.68 Goethe explicitly stated that he

wanted to bring his colour theory to those working with colour forit was they, unlike their predecessors, the Catholic Christians, who

first questioned authority by noticing the shortcomings of New-

ton's doctrine. He wished 'to bring the question [of Newton's

crucial experiment] to the general public (das grofiere Pub-

likum)'.69 He claimed that: 'The phenomena must once and for all

be brought out of the gloomy empirical-mechanical-dogmatictorture chamber (Marterkammer) and presented before the jury of

common sense.'70It should be emphasized that, unlike many accounts of Goethe

from the former German Democratic Republic, he was not 'an

early nineteenth-century Marxist'. Goethe, like many govern-mental officials of his day, saw the labour of workers as financiallyessential to the Duchy. He accomplished much, as the Beamter

responsible for the Ilmenau mine, by improving the health

conditions for miners. But this did not represent a general concern

for them per se, but rather the notion that when the workers are

healthy, they work more efficiently - thereby adding to the duchy'scoffers. Goethe's decision to address the artisans was typical of the

patronizing attitude of a bourgeois Privy Councillor.

But his decision to include the Handwerker is nevertheless

noteworthy. Goethe was one of the governmental reformers

during the late eighteenth century who perceived the importanceof the artisan tradition. He assisted in building up a bureaucratic

state which could both recognize and coordinate the skilled labour

of the artisans. This move was a reform of the French-style court,which had been the model for mid-eighteenth century German

courts, such as Frederick the Great's in Berlin. In such a court, the

philosophers (such as Euler) enjoyed a hegemonic discourse in the

study of nature. The instrument makers were invisible.71 As a

result of reforms by bureaucrats such as Goethe, Utzschneider and

684




Montgelas in Bavaria and Heynitz in Prussia somewhat earlier, bythe second decade of the nineteenth

century,skilled artisans could

be elected into Academies of Science and even be knighted.

Joseph von Fraunhofer, the perfector of the achromatic lens,serves as a good example. Although being born to a very poor

family and never receiving a formal education, Fraunhofer was

able to obtain patronage from King Maximilian I, be knighted and

be inducted into the Bavarian Academy of Sciences. This stood in

sharp contrast to early nineteenth-century Britain and France.72

The achromatic lens was, after all, the most celebrated failure of

Newtonian optics in the eighteenth century, due to the work ofEuler, Klingenstierna, John Dollond and the London glass-makers, and particularly Fraunhofer and Benedictine monks.

Goethe, of course, discussed Newton's error in some detail. By

opening up the access of the colour theory to skilled labourers

such as glass-makers, by shedding light upon the darkness of

Newtonianism, the enterprise of Naturforschung could show how

'wrong' Newton actually was.

Goethean Nature versus Newtonian Artificiality

It is quite clear that Goethe believed that the spreading of a

doctrine of natural philosophy throughout eighteenth-century

Europe was socially determined. Of course, he saw social

influence as a contamination of science. He wrote:

How was it possible that such nonsense [Desaguliers' defence of Newton againstMariotte and Rizzetti] could creep into an experimental science (Erfahrungs-

wissenschaft)? In order to answer this question, we must realize that just as

ethical motives enter into science more than one thinks, so too are state and

legal motives brought into play.73

He claimed that social influences are needed to explain the success

of false depictions of nature. True depictions of nature, accordingto Goethe, were successful because of their 'inherent truth' as

shown by 'real' science.74 Goethe believed that the spread ofNewtonianism throughout France was a result of France's 'anglo-mania', initiated by Voltaire.75 During his stay at Gottingenin 1801, where he researched the historical portion of Zur

Farbenlehre, Goethe noted that the Newtonian theory had taken

root in the teaching of physics at the University there, as was

685




evidenced by the works of Hollmann, Segner, Kastner, Meister,

Erxleben,Mayer

and mostnotably Lichtenberg,

because of the

political ties of the region with the Hanoverian monarchy in

Britain.76 Hence, Goethe analyzed how social institutions were

responsible for the propagation of a theory. By virtue of his

presidency of the Royal Society, Newton was in a position of

power. This power ensured that his doctrine would be used as a

resource throughout the eighteenth century.77In order to increase the enrollment of supporters for his

enterprise, Goethe needed to legitimize his own methodology. His

second step in overthrowing Newton's authority was to claim thatthe Englishman's theory was artificial - that is to say, was not

derived from nature's laws, but from the human intellect.

Throughout his polemical part of Zur Farbenlehre, Goethe con-

stantly revealed that his methodology for investigating nature and

its phenomena was based on nature and its laws and order, and not

on a human construction such as a theorem or hypothesis, as was

the case with Newton. This was a quite damning accusation, since

artificiality is failed genius. Goethe, using the Kantian definition ofgenius from Kritik der Urtheilskraft (Critique of Judgement) as a

resource,78 claimed that genius was the ability of individuals,endowed by nature, to interpret its laws and apply them to art and

culture.79 Artificiality, on the other hand, does just the opposite: it

fabricates a law based on the human comprehension of nature and

substitutes it for nature's laws. In the polemics of Zur Farbenlehre,Goethe accused Newton's theories of being artificial.

With such shade, such half-darkness, Newton begins, quite artificially, his entirediscussion lof the crucial experiment].8"

Newton does not produce his experiments in a natural order, but in an artificial

order.81

There are no natural steps in the continual rows produced in a Newtonian

manner, only artificial steps.Y2

Not only was Goethe sceptical about Newton's claim that theorems

helped reveal nature to her investigator, he believed that Newton's

artificiality actually hindered one from viewing nature, since itcreated a false nature. Indeed, according to Goethe, Newton's

entire doctrine was based on an artificial case, the crucial experi-ment. All of Newton's coloured phenomena are observed from the

point of view of the theory of refraction, which was not derived

from nature herself, but from an artificial hypothesis.83 Goethe

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believed that the Newtonians, by locking themselves in a darkened

chamber, werelocking

out nature. In short, Newton'sreign

in the

natural sciences was not based on nature; hence it was tantamount

to tyranny. Its reign was not legitimate; therefore, a revolution

was in order.

Goethe went to great lengths to reveal that his replacement

study of colour was based on nature. He claimed to have found the

order of natural phenomena and to have remained true to its

phenomena.84 Goethe's Urphinomene (archetypal phenomena)served as his substitute for hypotheses. Since an Urphinomen

stood at the limit of an individual's perception, it representednature's building block, and no attempt should be made by the

investigator of nature to theorize and transcend its boundaries.85

The Urphdnomen also stood at the limit of a series. It was a

general picture which contained the forms of a particular series.

Although Goethe believed that one never saw an Urphdnomen in

nature, the Urphanomen, quite crucially, never transcended

experience, as it was derived from, and tested by, observation.

Although knowledge for Goethe was derived by personal experi-ences, he still sought objective knowledge 'in order to free nature

from the dark room and tiny prisms'.86The transformation of subjective experience into objective

knowledge of nature was crucial to Goethe. His essay, 'Der

Versuch als Vermittler von Objekt und Subjekt' ('The Objectiveand Subjective Reconciled by Means of the Experiment'), written

from 1792 to 1793, dealt with this transformation. Goethe explicitlyclaimed this essay to be an explanation of his Beitrige zur Optik.He believed that the subjective experiences (Erfahrungen) of the

eye, combined with the power of judgement (Urtheilskraft)87of

the investigator, produced 'objective truths' about nature. The

genius investigator (which, of course, Goethe considered himself

to be) derives experiments which produce phenomena detected bythe senses. He/she then arranges these phenomena in a logicalseries. Phenomena are arranged by their relationship with other

phenomena and not by the subjective whims of the investigator.

Those wishing to replicate and comprehend the natural law whichthe genius investigator discovers by successive experiments, can do

so without being a genius. Thus, Goethe was privileging his abilityto discover natural laws. Yet he claimed that his status was

legitimate since his methodology was based on nature, and

because he offered his laws to everyone. Everyone could, in his

687




the eye is actually Goethe's own (sketched while looking in a

mirror),it

representsthe

eyeof the

genius investigatorof nature.

This depiction corresponds to the centrality of the eye to Goethe's

work on colour theory. Also note that the prism does not occupy a

central position in the engraving, just as the prism was not central

to Goethe's colour theory, but was crucial to Newton's doctrine.

In the historical part of Zur Farbenlehre, in his attack on Newton's

claim that the production of achromatic lenses was theoretically

impossible, Goethe highlighted the role of the eye in colour

perception, from the theories of the ancient Greeks to Euler's

analysis of the eye, as an achromatic organ. A significant portionof the didactic part of the treatise was dedicated to the study of the

physiological colours, and to the analysis of specific forms of

colour blindness and their effect on colour perception. Hence the

subjective experiences of the investigator's eye attacked Newton's

Opticks since, as Goethe correctly asserted, Newton ignored the

eye and the physiological aspects of colour perception.The genius's Urtheilskraft, however, prevented the subjective

experiences of the investigator from becoming solipsistic. TheUrtheilskraft rendered knowledge of the senses objective, since

Goethe argued that such an attribute was only the propertyof the genius. Goethe retrospectively used anschauende Urtheils-

kraft in the first decade of the nineteenth century to arguethat his Naturforschung was not merely a projection of man's

ego, as were the Naturphilosophien of Friedrich Schlegel and other

early Romantics.

Goethean Nature versus Schlegelian Anarchy

While researching and writing Zur Farbenlehre during the first

decade of the nineteenth century, Goethe began to distance

himself from the Naturphilosophien of the early Romantics,

particularly Friedrich Schlegel. Goethe was embroiled in a bitter

fight with Schlegel on artistic theory. Goethe upheld noeclassicism

as the only true art form, while Schlegel spearheaded the GothicRevival in Germany from 1803 onwards.89 Schlegel opposed the

idea that the classical notion of law and art was the best form of

art. He and Goethe exchanged public insults from 1807 onwards.

Schlegel attacked Goethe's pantheism in Die Weisheit der Indier

by challenging the belief that nature generates laws.

689




There is a critical connection between Goethe's diatribes against

Schlegeland Newton. Goethe believed that the works of both

Newton and the early Romantics were 'unnatural', 'artificial',

'exaggerated', 'capricious' and 'arbitrary'.90Goethe was alludingto the fact that the works of the Romantics failed to expressnature. Schlegel was the other extreme in Goethe's spectrum of

enemies, and therefore equally dangerous. In this Theorie der

Natur in the Kolner Vorlesungen (Cologne Lectures) of 1804-05,

Schlegel wrote that there are no absolute laws because laws are

derived from, and therefore subordinate to, the fundamental laws

of freedom. As a result of the conditionality of laws, they are onlytransitions and a means to an end.91 He continued:

nothing contradicts the notion of freedom more than laws, . . .there are neither

absolute laws nor absolute opposites . . .; since all laws and opposites are onlyderivatives and subordinates [it must follow] that there therefore can be no

absolute law.92

Thus, whereas Goethean natural laws were absolute and essential,

Schlegel claimed just the contrary. Schlegel emphasized the

importance of freedom. Goethe was much more concerned with

depicting an ordered, law-generating nature. This basic difference

was reflected not only in their views of nature, but also in their

views of literature, art and politics.Whereas Newton enslaved nature with his hypotheses, Schlegel

protrayed nature as a totally lawless entity. Such a view was

necessarily subversive since it threatened the legitimacy of en-

lightened despotism, and thereby undermined the social order.Goethe's diatribe against Newton was concurrent with his attack

against the works of the early Romantics for two related reasons.

First, both were examples of artificiality. Second, their artificialitythreatened Goethe's social order. Newton, by acting as the tyrant

epitomized by the French ancien regime, ultimately gave rise to the

desire for anarchy so characteristic of individuals such as Schlegel.In a letter to C.F. Reinhard dated 22 June 1808, Goethe clearlydrew the

parallel:

This conversion [Schlegel's conversion to Catholicism in 1808] is worth the

trouble of following step by step because it is a sign of the times and because

never before in the highest light of reason, understanding and world view has a

superior and highly talented individual been so misled to play the bug-bear. Or

if you want another simile: close out as much light with curtains over a window

690




in order to produce a truly dark room. Then allow as much light through via a

foramen minimum as is necessary to produce hocus pocus.93

Schlegel's and Newton's views of nature were tantamount to

deception. Deception is, of course, controlled by a single indi-

vidual who does not allow his/her audience to have access to his/

her technique of deception. The audience is locked out of the

inner circle of the deceivers. One's attention is distracted awayfrom the phenomenon. Schlegel had gone from anarchy (the

young Schlegel was a staunch proponent of the French Revolution)

to Catholicism. He, according to Goethe, swung from anarchy totyranny. Goethe's view of nature was situated in the middle,

equally hostile to the two extremes.

Goethe's Respecification of the Newtonian Spectrum94

The third and final step of Goethe's usurpation of the tyrantNewton was his respecification of the Newtonian spectrum. In

short, Goethe invited his readers to visualize his spectrum in aparticular way. He attempted to reproduce 'what Newton saw' by

using a totally different methodology and set-up, and thus in the

end saw something which Newton actually did not see.95

Newton's third experiment was designed to prove Theorem II,

namely that the sun's light is composed of rays which are

differentially refrangible. As is well known, Newton covered a

window in his chamber and cut a small hole in the window shade in

order to permit a ray of sunlight to enter the darkened room. Hethen placed a prism so that the beam passed through the down-

ward angle of that prism and projected a spectrum on the oppositewall. Newton concluded from that experiment that:

This Image or Spectrum . . . was coloured, being red at its least refracted end

.., and violet at its most refracted end . ., and yellow, green and blue in the

intermediate spaces which agrees with the first Proposition, that Lights which

differ in Colour, do also differ in Refrangibility. The length of the Image in the

foregoing Experiments, I measured from the faintest and outmost red at one

end, to the faintest and outmost blue at the other end, excepting only a little

Penumbra, whose breadth scarce exceeded a quarter of an Inch, as was said

above.96

Goethe did not agree with Newton's explanation for the appear-ance of colours when white light is passed through a prism.

691




FIGURE 2

When one looks through the downward angle of a prism at a white rectangle

enclosed in a larger, black rectangle, colours can only be seen at the horizontalboundaries of black and white. At the top of the white triangle, the colours red and

yellow are generated. At the bottom, the colours blue and violet are generated.Where Newton's theory of refraction predicts the colour green, a large band of

white appears.

Red

Yellow

White

Blue

Violet

He maintained that colour could only be produced when the

Urphanomenof a white-black

boundarywas

present.Thus, when

Goethe placed a white rectangle inside a larger black rectangle, he

observed the colours red and yellow at the top of the white

rectangle and blue and violet at the bottom (see Figure 2). The

colour green was absent from the spectrum. The space where

Newton's doctrine predicted green was totally white. Goethe then

increased the distance from the prism to the coloured card. The

further the prism was held from the card, the wider the blue and

yellow bands became, and the shorter the white band in the middle

became. He continued to increase the distance between the prismand card until the yellow band from the top of the card blended

with the blue band from the bottom, thus producing the colour

green (see Figure 3). Newton's spectrum was recreated by re-

specification. In his doctrine of diverse refrangibility, Newton

argued that the colour green was homogeneous, resulting from the

692




FIGURE 3

As the observer increases the distance between the prism and the card, the yellow

and blue bands appear to migrate towards each other until they merge, and thecolour green is produced. That is, according to Goethe, green is not a homo-

geneous colour as Newton claimed, but a colour which is created by mixing yellowand blue.

fact that green light refracts through a specific angle. Goethe

countered this claim with his coloured card. He argued that green

was not a homogeneous colour, but was the resultant of the mixingof blue and yellow.97As Bjelic and Lynch have argued, Goethe's Farbenspiele (colour

games) must be viewed as a series of metamorphoses of which the

Newtonian spectrum is merely one artefact in that 'it appears and

disappearsas a particularized product of an "artist'srendering" .98

Thus, Goethe believed that he had toppled the privileged status

which Newton's spectrum enjoyed. It was merely one of manywithin a series of metamorphoses which gained acceptability, not

because it represented a universal law of nature, but ratherbecause of the authority possessed by Newton. As Goethe wrote

in his 'Der Versuch . . .':

One will be able to notice that the more art a good head uses the fewer

experiences he needs before him. He selects only a few favourites of the

693




existing experiences which flatter him and virtually illustrate his supremacy

(Herrschaft). He can order the remaining experiences so as not to appear to

contradict him.99

Goethe claimed that his colour games relied on skills which he

believed were more widely distributed in society. Artisans such as

dyers, tanners and technicians could successfully replicate his

colour games. Clearly, then, these colour games in Zur Farbenlehre

were far more open than Newton's optical experiments. This was

the political message which Goethe wished to convey to his

readers.

Conclusion

Goethe sought to establish a crucial connection between writing

history and performing an experiment. Because the meaning of

experiments depends upon the political narrative in which they are

placed, Goethe's respecification of the Newtonian spectrum, along

with the history which he himself provided the reader, offered anepistemology far more open than the closed circles of interpre-tation formulated by the Newtonians, Catholics and Illuminati.

For Goethe, history grounded science's ontological and moral

status. He maintained that one could not offer a legitimate historyof optics and colour theory during Newton's reign of darkness.100

He hoped that Newton's authority in physics would be ephemeral,

just as the Newtonian spectrum was only one of many in Goethe's

metamorphoses of the spectra. That is to say that history had

shown Goethe how Newton used his social status both to bolsterhis theories and to construct his spectrum.

Zur Farbenlehre served as a vehicle for Goethe's thoughts not

only on colour theory, but on history, political theory, sociologyand culture in general. Because of his duties as Privy Councillor to

Duke Carl August, and as author of Zur Farbenlehre in the

aftermath of the Napoleonic Wars, the effects of a tyrant's reignand resentment of France as intellectual arbiter were most appar-

ent. Goethe legitimized his desire for a revolution in colour theoryby claiming that Newton had replaced nature's phenomena with an

artificial, tyrannical hypothesis, and that his own Naturforschungwas based on the laws and order of nature. His polemic against the

Newtonian school must also be considered in the same historical

context as his diatribes against the works of the early Romantics.

694




In both cases he was arguing that inferior views of art and nature

were tantamount towarped political ideologies. Unenlighteneddespotism inevitably leads to an increase in revolutionaries.

Anyone attempting to display authority over nature was bydefinition a tyrant, and his/her enterprise would be artificial, and

thus inevitably doomed. With the access of interpretation made

available to a greater audience, Goethe's colour theory resembled

'a free republic' rather than an unenlightened 'despotic court'.10

* NOTES

I would like to thank Warwick Anderson, Jed Z. Buchwald, Lorraine Daston,Michael Lynch, Simon Schaffer and the anonymous referees' reports for their

valuable comments and constructive criticisms on earlier versions of this paper. I

would also like to thank the archivists of the Goethe-Schiller-Archive in Weimar

for permitting me to use Goethe's own prisms while attempting to replicate his

colour games.

1. To name just a few works which have contributed to the 'canon of

disciplinary histories of science and literature', see Hermann von Helmholtz,Goethes Vorahndungen kommender naturwissenschaftlicher Ideen (Berlin: Pas-

tel, 1892); Werner Heisenberg, 'Das Naturbild Goethes und die technisch-

naturwissenschaftliche Welt', in Jahrbuch der Goethegesellschaft, n.s. Vol. 29

(1967), 27-42; Heisenberg, 'The Teachings of Goethe and Newton on Colour in the

Light of Modern Physics', trans. F.C. Hayes, in Philosophical Problems of Nuclear

Science (London: Faber & Faber, 1952), 60-76; and G. Ott and H. Proskauer

(eds), Farbenlehre: Mit Einleitungen und Kommentaren von Rudolf Steiner (Stutt-

gart: Verlag Freies Geistesleben, 1979). Unfortunately, such histories inevitablylead one to the vindication or debunking of the Goethean enterprise. Recent

examples of this type of history writing include: Gernot Bohme, 'Is Goethe's

Theory of Color Science?', Hjalmar Hegge, 'Theory of Science in the Light of

Goethe's Science of Nature', Giinther Altner, 'Goethe as a Forerunner of

Alternative Science', Frederick Amrine and Francis J. Zucker, 'Postscript:Goethe's Science: An Alternative to Modern Science or within It - or No

Alternative at All?', all found in F. Amrine, F.J. Zucker and H. Wheeler (eds),Goethe and the Sciences: A Reappraisal, Boston Studies in the Philosophy of

Science, Vol. 97 (Dordrecht: D. Reidel, 1987), 147-74, 195-218, 341-50 and 373-

88; and Dennis L. Sepper, Goethe Contra Newton: Polemics and the Projectfor aNew Science of Color (Cambridge, New York, New Rochelle, Melbourne &

Sydney: Cambridge University Press, 1987).2. Ruppert Matthaei, Goethes Farbenlehre (Ravensburg: Otto Maier Verlag,

1971), 205-06, and Frederick Burwick, The Damnation of Newton: Goethe's Color

Theory and Romantic Reception (Berlin & New York: Walter de Gruyter, 1986),10.

695




3. For Goethe's disdain for the French Revolution and his general supportfor enlightened despotism, see Hans Ttimmler, Goethe in Staat und Politik:

Gesammelte Aufsatze (Cologne: Bohlau, 1964); Tummler, Aus Goethes staats-politischen Wirken (Essen: Webbels, 1952); Wilhelm Mommsen, Die politischen

Anschauungen Goethes (Stuttgart: Deutsche Verlag, 1948); Willi Kunz, Goethe

und das Politische (Frankfurt am Main: Diesterweg, 1938); Eugen Mack, Goethe in

der Deutschen Nationalversammlung und im Rechts- und Staatsleben der Deutschen

(Wiirttenberg: Wolfegg, 1926); Fritz Hartung, 'Goethe als Staatsmann', in

Jahrbuch der Goethe-Gesellschaft, Vol. 9 (1922), 297-314, and Hartung, Das

Gro3fherzogtum Sachsen unter der Regierung Carl August 1775-1828 (Weimar:Hermann Bohlau, 1923).

4. J.P. Eckermann, Conversations of Goethe, trans. John Oxenford (London:

George Bell & Sons, 1883), 84. Although this quote represents Goethe's ownretrospective analysis of his work on colour, as I shall argue in the section on

'Goethe: The Luther of Colour Theory', below, he purposely identified himself as

the reformer of colour theory during the 1790s and 1800s.

5. This is Goethe's label for Newton's theory of colours. It is highly debatable

if Newton's views really were mechanical in nature.

6. Myles W. Jackson, 'Goethe's Economy of Nature and the Nature of His

Economy', Accounting, Organization and Society, Vol. 17, No. 5 (1992), 459-69;

Jackson, 'The Politics of Goethe's Views on Nature', Nature and Nurture in the

Enlightenment, Vol. 2, No. 2 (September 1992), 143-57; and Jackson, 'Natural and

Artificial Budgets: Accounting for Goethe's Economy of Nature', Science inContext, Vol. 7, No. 4 (forthcoming 1994).

7. Goethes Werke: Herausgegeben im Auftrage der Grossherzogin Sophie von

Sachsen: Weimarer Ausgabe (henceforth abbreviated WA): (Weimar: Herman

Bohlaus, 1887-1912, 143 Volumes), Part IV, Vol. 9, 264. All translations in this

paper are my own.

8. Note that this is Goethe's own gendered language.9. J.W.v. Goethe, Die Schriften zur Naturwissenschaften: Leopoldina

Ausgabe (henceforth abbreviated LA): (Weimar: Hermann B6hlaus, 1947ff), Part

I, Vol. 4, 5-6.

10. LA II, 6, 141.11. LA I, 6, 254. Simon Schaffer discusses these aspects of Newton's optics in

'Glass Works: Newton's Prisms and the Uses of Experiment', in D. Gooding, T.

Pinch and S. Schaffer (eds), The Uses of Experiment: Studies in the Natural Sciences

(Cambridge, New York, New Rochelle, Sydney & Melbourne: Cambridge Uni-

versity Press, 1989), 67-104. Newton had his Opticks published in 1704, not 1705 as

Goethe wrote.

12. For the most comprehensive account of the Meister/Dilettant debate in

Goethe's works, see Hans Rudolf Vaget, Dilettantismus und Meisterschaft: Zum

Problem des Dilettantismus bei Goethe: Praxis, Theorie, Zeitkritik (Munich:

Winckler Verlag, 1971).13. Simon Schaffer, 'Genius in Romantic Natural Philosophy', in Andrew

Cunningham and Nicholas Jardine (eds), Romanticism and the Sciences (Cam-

bridge, New York, Port Chester, Melbourne & Sydney: Cambridge University

Press, 1991), 82-98, at 89.

14. LA I, 4, 8-9.

15. Ibid., 7.

696




16. See note 6.

17. WA II, 4, 173.

18. Ibid.19. Ibid., 178-79. See also Casper Hakfoort, Optica in de eeuw van Euler:

Opvattingen over de natuur van het licht, 1700-1795 (Amsterdam: Rodolphi, 1986),

116-67, particularly 118-23.

20. WA II, 4, 180.

21. Ibid.

22. Ibid., 182.

23. Ibid.

24. Ibid., 183.

25. Ibid., 184-85.

26. Recent studies have shown that the Newtonian reception in Germany was

far more complex and far less pervasive than Goethe believed. It is certainly

possible that Goethe exaggerated the strength of his opponents. See Hakfoort, op.cit. note 19.

27. See LA II, 6, 228; LA I, 5, 12-13, 47 and 56.

28. WA II, 4, 186.

29. LA I, 3, 81-89, and Sepper, op. cit. note 1, 89.

30. Ibid.

31. WA II, 4, 183.

32. LA I, 4, 7.

33. Lorraine Daston, 'The Ideal and Reality of the Republic of Letters',Science in Context, Vol. 4, No. 2 (1991), 367-86.

34. Histoire de la Republique des Lettres en France, Annee 1779, 5; translation

in Daston, ibid., 367.

35. Daston, op. cit. note 33, 379-80.

36. Goethe certainly considered himself a member of a meritocratic order

centred around the intelligentsia of Weimar and Jena during the end of the

eighteenth and beginning of the nineteenth century. Once a regular member of the

Freitagsgesellschaft, one was considered an equal. Indeed, when Duke Carl August

attended the meetings with such illuminaries as Goethe and Schiller, his interpre-tation or views were not privileged in any way. Similarly, Goethe considered the

Royal Society of London's policy of admitting practitioners (Praktiker) and

tehnicians with scholars, researchers, barons and the King a tremendous advan-

tage: see WA II, 4, 13. However, members of the general public were neither

invited to become members of the Freitagsgesellschaftnor to become members of

the Republic of Letters: see Daston, op. cit. note 33, 379-80. Thus Goethe's

egalitarianism was muted.

37. It is highly controversial to claim that the Newtonians were exclusive. But I

am interested chiefly in Goethe's construction of what he considered to be the case.

38. Nicholas Boyle, Goethe: The Poet and the Age, Vol. I, The Poetry of Desire(Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1991), 273-74 and 590-91.

39. Helma Dahl (ed.), Goethes Amtliche Schriften, Vol. II, Part 2 (Weimar:Hermann Bohlaus Nachfolger, 1970), 780-89.

40. Boyle, op. cit. note 38, 590-91.

41. Ibid., 591.

42. For a different view on Goethe's notion of authority, see Karl J. Fink's

697




Goethe and the History of Science (Cambridge, New York, New Rochelle,Melbourne & Sydney: Cambridge University Press, 1991), 105-14.

43. The notion of 'self-fashioning' is originally Stephen Greenblatt's, but hasrecently been incorporated into the history of science by Mario Biagioli, 'Galileo

the Emblem Maker', Isis, Vol. 81, No. 307 (June 1990), 230-58.

44. LA I, 4, 7.

45. LA I, 6, 93.

46. Ibid., 93-94.

47. Ibid., 151.

48. Goethe's view closely mirrored the general view of late eighteenth- and

early nineteenth-century Protestant bourgeois Germans: see Julian Roberts, 'The

Politics of Interpretation: Sacred and Secular Hermeneutics in the Work of Luther,

J.S. Semmler and H.-G. Gadamer', Ideas and Production, Vol. 1 (March 1983),15-32.

49. I understand that this is a highly controversial point among early modern

scholars. I am simply stating Goethe's view.

50. Albrecht Schone, Goethes Farbentheologie (Munich: C.H. Beck, 1987), 45-

67, 76-83. The ensuing several paragraphs are based on this work.

51. LA I, 7, 89.

52. See, for example, LA II, 6, 152.

53. LA I, 6, 253.

54. LA I, 6, 293.

55. LA I, 6, 289.56. LA I, 6, 338 and LA I, 6, 352.

57. WA IV, 48, 105.

58. LA I, 5, 45; see also LA I, 5, 145.

59. Schone has reprinted the poems, op. cit. note 50, 167-228.

60. WA IV, 10, 312; see also WA I, 56, 320.

61. Schone, op. cit. note 50, 76-83; see also WA I, 3, 277 and 356; WA I, 6, 575

and 578.

62. WA II, 56, 374.

63. LA I, 8, 181.

64. WA IV, 33, 170-71.65. WA IV, 35, 284.

66. Dahl (ed.), op. cit. note 39, Vol. II, Part 2, 577-78, and Vol. III (Weimar:Hermann Bohlaus Nachfolger, 1972), 192; see also A.N. Scherer, Kurze Darstellungder chemischen Untersuchungen der Gasarten: Far seine offentliche Vorlesungen

entworfen (Weimar: Gadicke, 1799).67. LA I, 4, 214-15.

68. Ibid., 214.

69. LA I, 6, 424.

70. LA I, 8, 361.

71. See Richard Sorrenson, 'Making a Living Out of Science: John Dollondand the Achromatic Lens', in Scientific Instrument Makers at the Royal Society of

London, 1720-1780 (unpublished PhD dissertation, Princeton University, NJ:

Department of History, 1993).72. Fraunhofer was indeed elected into the Royal Astronomical Society of

London by John Herschel in 1825, but this was because of his status as a foreigner.

Foreigners, particularly knighted ones, could be inducted into an Academy

698




regardless of whether or not their work was associated with manual labour. British

skilled labourers had a much more difficult time during the early nineteenth

century. By the 1820s and 1830s, the British Industrial Revolution had separatedthe classes to such an extent that instrument-makers could no longer receive the

prestige of their grandfathers (George Dollond, for example, received practicallyno recognition as an instrument-maker, unlike his grandfather, John Dollond).Consider David Brewster's diatribe in 1827 against the British government's lack of

scientific patronage: 'His [Fraunhofer's] own sovereign Maximilian Joseph was his

earliest and his latest patron, and by the liberality with which he conferred civil

honours and pecuniary rewards on Joseph Fraunhofer, he has immortalized his

own name, and added a new lustre to the Bavarian crown. In thus noticing the

honours which a grateful sovereign had conferred on the distinguished improver of

the achromatic telescope, it is impossible to subdue the mortifying recollection,that no wreath of British gratitude has yet adorned the inventor of that noble

telescope. England may well blush when she hears the name of Dollond pro-nounced without any appendage of honour, and without any association of

gratitude. . . . The British minister who shall first establish a system of effectual

patronage for our arts and sciences . . . will be regarded as the Colbert of his ageand will secure to himself a more glorious renown than he could ever obtain from

the highest achievements in legislation or in politics': The Edinburgh Journal of

Science, Vol. VII (April-October 1827), 10-11; see also Myles W. Jackson's

'Artisanal Knowledge and Experimental Natural Philosophers: Focusing on the

British Response to Joseph Fraunhofer and the Bavarian Usurpation of Their

Optical Empire', Studies in History and Philosophy of Science, Vol. 25, No. 2

(1994), 191-209.

73. LA I, 6, 288.

74. It is interesting to note that although many readers of Social Studies ofScience might assume that David Bloor's symmetry argument, as advanced in the

1976 edition of his Knowledge and Social Imagery (Chicago, IL & London: The

University of Chicago Press, 2nd edn, 1991), 175-79, has rendered such beliefs

antiquated, Alan M. Chalmers, for example, takes a similar stance to Goethe -

namely,that 'bad science' needs to be

explained by sociologistsand/or

anthropologistswho specialize in the 'non-scientific' and 'non-rational': see his Science and

Fabrication (Milton Keynes, Bucks. & Bristol, PA: Open University Press,

1990).75. LA I, 6, 324.

76. Ibid., 351-52.

77. Simon Schaffer, 'Newtonianism', in R.C. Olby et al. (eds), Companion to

the History of Modern Science (London & New York: Routledge & Kegan Paul,

1990), 610-26. Schaffer discusses how Newton and his allies tailored his doctrine in

order to make it more acceptable to key audiences.

78. Immanuel Kant, The Critique of Judgement, translated with analyticalindexes by James Meredith Creed (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1988), 168.

79. For Goethe's use of Kant's definition of genius, see his Dichtung und

Wahrheit: Aus Meinem Leben, WA I, 29, 146.

80. LA I, 5, 10.

81. Ibid., 115.

82. Ibid., 129.

699



700 Social Studies of Science

83. Ibid., 122. See Goethe's attempt to replicate Newton's Third Experiment,

ibid., 121-26.

84. Ibid., 1.85. LA I, 4, 77.

86. For Goethe's belief that his knowledge of colour theory was objective, see

LA I, 6, 426.

87. Note that, although Goethe employed the Kantian notion of Urtheilskraft,he certainly did not believe, as Kant did, that everyone possessed it. Interestingly,Goethe was less egalitarian in this respect. As Jardine has convincingly shown,

Goethe's notion of anschauende Urtheilskraft was different from Kant's originalnotion of Urtheilskraft:see Nicholas Jardine, The Scenes of Inquiry: On the Reality

of Questions in the Sciences (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1991), 37-43. See also

Goethe's essay 'Anschauende Urteilskraft', in LA I, 9, 95-96. The standard work

on Goethe's usage of Kant as a resource in his writings on nature is K. Vorlander,

'Goethes Verhaltnis zu Kant in seiner historischen Entwicklung', Kant-Studien,

Vol. 1 (1897), 60-99, 315-51; Vol. 2 (1898), 161-236.

88. LA I, 8, 314-15 (the emphasis is my own).89. W.D. Robson-Scott, The Literary Background to the Gothic Revival in

Germany (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1965).90. See Goethe's conversation with Friedrich Wilhelm Riemer in 1808, in E.

Beutler (ed.), Goethes Gedenksausgabe der Werke, Briefe und Gesprache, Artemis

Ausgabe (Zurich: Artemis Verlag, 1948-71), Vol. XXII, 500.91. E. Behler, J.-J. Anstedt and H. Eichner (eds), Kritische-Friedrich-Schlegel-

Ausgabe (Paderborn, Schoningh & Zurich: Thomas, 1958ff), Vol. XII, 417.

92. Ibid.

93. WA IV, 20, 93-94.

94. I am using the term 'respecification' in Garfinkel's sense: the sociological

process of investigating the reality of social facts by investigating how it is that such

facts arise. See Harold Garfinkel, 'Respecification: Evidence for locally produced,

naturally accountable phenomena of order, logic, reason, meaning, method, etc. in

and as of the essential haecceity of immortal ordinary society: (I)-an announcement

of studies', in G. Button (ed.), Ethnomethodology and the Human Sciences

(Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1991), 10-19.

95. Dusan Bjelic and Michael Lynch, in 'The Work of a (Scientific) Demon-

stration: Respecifying Newton's and Goethe's Theories of Prismatic Color', in

Graham Watson and Robert Sailer (eds), Text in Content: Contributions to

Ethnomethodology (London: Sage, 1992), 52-78, make this point. My argument in

the following paragraphs owes much to this article.

96. Isaac Newton, Opticks, or a Treatise of the Reflections, Refractions,

Inflections & Colours of Light (New York: Dover, 1952 [based on the fourth

edition published by William Innys of London in 1730]), 32-33.97. LA I, 5, 145. See Bjelic & Lynch, op. cit. note 95, for other coloured card

Farbenspiele.98. Bjelic & Lynch, op. cit. note 95, 73.

99. LA I, 8, 310-11.

100. LA I, 4, 7.

101. LA I, 8, 311, 'eine freiwerkende Republik . . . despotischer Hof.



Jackson: Goethe & Newton: A Spectrum of Belief 701

Myles W.Jackson is currentlya faculty member of the

Departmentof

Historyand

Sociologyof Science at the

University of Pennsylvania. He received his PhD in 1991

from the Department of the History and Philosophy of

Science at the University of Cambridge, offering a study on

the interrelationships between Goethe's views on nature,art and the social order. He is now working on a book-

length study of a history of German and British optics

during the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries.

His postdoctoral research has been funded by a Mellon

Foundation Fellowship and a National Science FoundationFellowship.

Author's address: Department of History and Sociology of

Science, University of Pennsylvania, Science Center Suite

500, 3440 Market Street, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania19104-3325, USA.

A Spectrum of Belief Goethe's Republic' Versus Newtonian Despotism'

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