The Rudolf Steiner Archive

16. Goethe as a Thinker and Researcher

Goethe and the modern science of nature

[ 1 ] If there were not a duty to speak the truth without reserve when one believes to have recognized it, then the following remarks would probably have remained unwritten. I cannot doubt the judgment they will receive from the experts in the natural sciences, given the prevailing trend today. They will be seen as an amateurish attempt by a person to speak out in favor of a cause that has long since been judged by all those with "insight". When I reproach myself for the contempt of all those who today believe themselves to be the only ones called to speak about scientific questions, then I must confess to myself that there is nothing enticing in this attempt in the popular sense. But I could not be deterred by these probable objections. For I can make all these objections myself and therefore know how unsound they are. It is not exactly difficult to think "scientifically" in the sense of modern natural science. We experienced a strange case not too long ago. Eduard von Hartmann came up with his "Philosophy of the Unconscious". Today, the least likely person to deny the imperfections of this book would be the witty author himself. But the school of thought we are confronted with here is a penetrating one, one that gets to the bottom of things. It therefore powerfully gripped all minds that had a need for deeper knowledge. But it thwarted the paths of the naturalists who groped at the surface of things. These generally rebelled against it. After various attacks on their part remained quite ineffective, a pamphlet appeared by an anonymous author: "The Unconscious from the Standpoint of Darwinism and the Theory of Descent" [1872], which put forward with all conceivable critical acuity everything that could be said against the newly founded philosophy from the standpoint of modern natural science. This writing caused a sensation. The followers of the current school were extremely satisfied with it. They publicly acknowledged that the author was one of their own, and proclaimed his views as their own. What a disappointment they experienced! When the author really named himself, it was - Ed. v. Hartmann. But this proves one thing with convincing force: it is not unfamiliarity with the results of natural research, not dilettantism, that makes it impossible for certain minds striving for deeper insight to join the school of thought that today wants to proclaim itself the dominant one. But it is the realization that the paths of this direction are not the right ones. It will not be difficult for philosophy to place itself on trial on the standpoint of the present view of nature. Ed. v. Hartmann has shown this irrefutably through his behavior for anyone who wants to see. This is to confirm the assertion I made above, that it will not be difficult for me either to make the objections that can be raised against my statements myself.

[ 2 ] At present, anyone who takes philosophical reflection on the nature of things seriously is probably regarded as a dilettante. Our contemporaries of the "mechanical" or even those of the "positivist" way of thinking regard having a world view as an idealistic quirk. Of course, this view becomes understandable when one sees the helpless ignorance in which these positivist thinkers find themselves when they talk about the "nature of matter", "the limits of knowledge", "the nature of atoms" or similar things. In these examples, one can make true studies of dilettantish treatment of incisive questions of science.*

[ 3 ] One must have the courage to admit all this to the natural science of the present day, despite the enormous, admirable achievements that the same natural science has recorded in the technical field. For these achievements have nothing to do with the true need for knowledge of nature. We have seen in our contemporaries, to whom we owe inventions whose significance for the future cannot even be imagined, that they lack a deeper scientific need. It is quite a different thing to observe the processes of nature in order to put its forces at the service of technology than to use these processes to try to gain a deeper insight into the essence of natural science. True science only exists where the mind seeks satisfaction of its needs, without external purpose.

[ 4 ] True science in the higher sense of the word has to do only with ideal objects; it can only be idealism. For it has its ultimate ground in needs that stem from the spirit. Nature awakens questions in us, problems that strive towards a solution. But it cannot provide this solution itself. Only the fact that a higher world confronts nature with our cognitive faculty creates higher demands. A being who did not possess this higher nature would simply not be able to solve these problems. They can therefore receive their answer from no other authority than this higher nature. Scientific questions are therefore essentially a matter that the spirit has to deal with itself. They do not lead it out of its own element. But the realm in which the spirit lives and weaves, as in its very own, is the idea, is the world of thought. To settle mental questions through mental answers is scientific activity in the highest sense of the word. And all other scientific activities are ultimately only there to serve this highest purpose. Take scientific observation. It should lead us to the realization of a natural law. The law itself is purely ideal. Even the need for a lawfulness behind the phenomena stems from the spirit. An unspiritual being would not have this need. Now let us approach observation! What do we actually want to achieve through it? Is it to provide us with something from outside, through sense observation, that could be the answer to the question generated in our spirit? Never. For why should we feel more satisfied by a second observation than by the first? If the mind were at all satisfied with the observed object, it would have to be satisfied with the first one. But the real question is not about a second observation, but about the ideal basis of the observations. What does this observation allow for an ideal explanation, how must I think it so that it appears possible to me? These are the questions that confront us in the world of the senses. I must seek out for myself from the depths of my spirit what I lack in relation to the sense world. If I cannot create for myself the higher nature that my spirit strives for in relation to the sensual world, then no power in the outer world can create it for me. The results of science can therefore only come from the spirit; they can therefore only be ideas. There is no objection to this necessary consideration. However, it ensures the idealistic character of all science.

[ 5 ] Modern natural science, by its very nature, cannot believe in the ideality of knowledge. For it does not regard the idea as the first, the most original, the creative, but as the final product of material processes. However, it is not at all aware of the fact that these material processes belong only to the world that is observable to the senses, but which, grasped more deeply, dissolves completely into the idea. The process in question presents itself to observation as follows: We perceive facts with our senses, facts that proceed entirely according to the laws of mechanics, then phenomena of heat, light, magnetism, electricity, and finally the process of life, and so on. At the highest stage of life we find that it rises to the formation of concepts, ideas, whose carrier is the human brain. Growing out of such a sphere of thought we find our own "I". This seems to be the supreme product of a complicated process mediated by a long series of physical, chemical and organic processes. But if we examine the ideal world, which constitutes the content of that "I", we find in it much more than merely the end product of that process. We find that the individual parts of it are linked together in a quite different way from the parts of that merely observed process. In that one thought arises in us, which then requires a second, we find that there is an ideal connection between these two objects in quite a different way from that which exists when I observe the coloring of a substance, for example, as the result of a chemical agent. It is quite natural that the successive stages of the brain process have their source in the organic metabolism, even though the brain process itself is the carrier of those thought-formations. But why the second thought follows from the first, I do not find the reason in this metabolism, but in the logical context of thought. In the world of thought there is thus, in addition to the organic necessity, a higher ideal necessity. But this necessity, which the mind finds within its world of ideas, it also seeks in the rest of the universe. For this necessity arises for us only through the fact that we not only observe, but also think. Or, in other words: things no longer appear in a merely actual context, but linked by an inner, ideal necessity, if we grasp them not merely through observation but through thought.

[ 6 ] In contrast, one cannot say: What is the point of grasping the phenomenal world in thought if the things of this world perhaps do not allow such a grasp by their very nature? This question can only be asked by someone who has not grasped the whole thing at its core. The world of thoughts lives in our inner being, it confronts the sensually observable objects and now asks, what relation does this world that confronts me have to myself? What is it to me? I am there with my ideal necessity hovering above all transience; I have the power within me to explain myself. But how do I explain that which appears to me?

[ 7 ] This is where a significant question is answered, which Friedrich Theodor Vascher, for example, has repeatedly raised and declared to be the pivotal point of all philosophical reflection: the question of the relationship between spirit and nature. What is the relationship between these two entities, which always seem to us to be separate from one another? If one poses this question rightly, then answering it is not as difficult as it seems. What possible meaning can the question have? It is not asked by a being that stands above nature and spirit as a third and examines that connection from its own standpoint, but by one of the two entities, the spirit itself. The latter asks: What is the connection between me and nature? But this again means nothing other than: How can I bring myself into a relationship with the nature opposite me? How can I express this relationship according to the needs living within me? I live in ideas; what kind of idea corresponds to nature, how can I express what I perceive as nature as an idea? It is as if we often obstruct our own path to a satisfactory answer by asking the wrong question. But a correct question is already half an answer.*

[ 8 ] The mind seeks everywhere to go beyond the sequence of facts as provided by mere observation and to penetrate to the ideas of things. Science begins where thinking begins. In its results lies the ideal necessity of what appears to the senses only as a sequence of facts. These results are only apparently the final product of the process described above; in truth they are that which we must regard as the basis of everything in the whole universe. Where they then appear for observation is irrelevant; for, as we have seen, their significance does not depend on this. They spread the net of their ideal necessity over the whole universe.

[ 9 ] We may start from wherever we like; if we have enough spiritual strength, we will finally encounter the idea.

[ 10 ] Because modern physics completely fails to recognize this, it is led to a whole series of errors. I will only point out one of them here as an example.

[ 11 ] Let's take the definition of inertia, which is usually listed in physics under the "general properties of bodies". This is usually defined as follows: No body can change the state of motion it is in without an external cause. This definition gives the impression that the concept of an inert body has been abstracted from the phenomenal world. And Mill, who nowhere goes into the matter itself, but turns old things upside down for the sake of a forced theory, would not for a moment think of explaining the matter in this way. But this is quite incorrect. The concept of the inertial body arises purely through a conceptual construction. By calling that which is extended in space a "body", I can imagine bodies whose changes are caused by external influences and those whose changes occur of their own accord. If I now find something in the outside world that corresponds to my formed concept: "body that cannot change without external impulse", then I call it inertia or subject to the law of inertia. My concepts are not abstracted from the sensory world, but freely constructed from the idea, and it is with their help that I find my way in the sensory world. The above definition could only read: A body that cannot change its state of motion of its own accord is called an inert. And if I have recognized it as such, then I can apply everything that has to do with an inert body to the body in question.

2. the "primal phenomenon"

[ 12 ] If we could follow the whole series of processes that take place in any sensory perception, from the peripheral ending of the nerve in the sensory organs to the brain, we would still not reach the point at which the mechanical, chemical and organic, in short the spatio-temporal processes stop, and that which we actually call sensory perception occurs, e.g. the sensation of warmth. e.g. the sensation of heat, light, sound, etc. There is no place to be found where the causative movement becomes its effect, the perception. But can we then even speak of the two things being in the relationship of cause and effect?

[ 13 ] Let us examine the facts quite objectively. Let us assume that a certain sensation occurs in our consciousness. It then occurs at the same time in such a way that it refers us to some object from which it originates. If I have the sensation of red, then, by virtue of the content of this perception, I usually associate with it at the same time a certain datum of place, i.e. a position in space, or the surface of an object, to which I attribute what this sensation expresses. This is only not the case when, through an external influence, the sense organ itself responds in its own peculiar way, as when I have a sensation of light when I hit my eye. Let us disregard these cases, in which the sensations never occur with their usual definiteness. As exceptional cases, they cannot teach us anything about the nature of things. If I have the sensation of red with a definite datum of place, I am first referred to some thing in the external world as the bearer of this sensation. I can now ask myself: What spatio-temporal processes are taking place in this thing while it appears to me to be afflicted with the red color? It will then become apparent to me that mechanical, chemical or other processes present themselves as the answer to my question. Now I can go further and investigate the processes that have taken place on the way from that thing to my sense organs in order to convey the sensation of the red color to me. Here again nothing but processes of motion or electric currents or chemical changes can present themselves to me as such mediators. The same result would have to occur to me if I could investigate the further mediation from the sense organs to the central point in the brain. What is mediated along this entire path is the perception of red in question. How this perception presents itself in a particular thing, which lies on the path from excitation to perception, depends solely on the nature of this thing. The sensation is present in every place, from the exciter to the brain, but not as such, not explicated, but as it corresponds to the nature of the object that is in that place.

[ 14 ] This, however, gives rise to a truth that is capable of shedding light on the entire theoretical basis of physics and physiology. What do I learn from the examination of a thing that is seized by a process that appears in my consciousness as a sensation? I learn nothing more than the way in which that thing responds to the action that emanates from the sensation, or in other words: how a sensation lives itself out in some object of the spatio-temporal world. Far from such a spatiotemporal process being the cause that triggers the sensation in me, the quite different is rather correct: the spatio-temporal process is the effect of the sensation in a spatiotemporally extended thing. I could interpolate any number of things on the path from the exciter to the organ of perception: in each one only that will occur which can occur in it by virtue of its nature. For this reason, however, perception remains that which lives itself out in all these processes.

[ 15 ] In the longitudinal oscillations of air in the mediation of sound or in the hypothetical oscillations of the ether in the mediation of light, therefore, one has to see nothing other than the way in which the sensations in question can occur in a medium which, by its nature, is only capable of rarefaction and condensation or of oscillating movement. I cannot find the sensation as such in this world because it simply cannot be there. In those processes, however, I have not given the objective of the processes of sensation, but a form of their occurrence.

[ 16 ] And now let us ask ourselves: What is the nature of these mediating processes themselves? Do we examine them by other means than with the help of our senses? Yes, can I examine my senses themselves by other means than with these very senses? Is the peripheral nerve ending, are the convolutions of the brain given by something other than sensory perception? All this is equally subjective and equally objective, if this distinction could be accepted as justified at all. Now we can be even more precise. By tracing perception from its excitation to the organ of perception, we are examining nothing other than the continuous transition from one perception to another. The "red" is before us as that for the sake of which we are making the whole investigation. It points us to its exciter. In it we observe other sensations as being connected with that red. They are processes of movement. The same then occur as further processes of movement between the exciter and the sense organ, and so on. But all these are likewise perceived sensations. And they represent nothing more than a metamorphosis of processes which, insofar as they come into consideration for sensory observation at all, dissolve completely into perceptions.

[ 17 ] The perceived world is thus nothing other than a sum of metamorphosed perceptions.

[ 18 ] For the sake of convenience, we had to use a form of expression that is not entirely consistent with the present result. We said that every thing interposed in the space between the exciter and the organ of perception expresses a sensation in the way it does according to its nature. Strictly speaking, the thing is nothing more than the sum of those processes as which it appears.

[ 19 ] One will now reply to us: with this conclusion of ours we do away with everything permanent in the ongoing world process; like Heraclitus, we make the flow of things, in which nothing remains, the sole principle of the world. Behind the phenomena there must be a "thing in itself", behind the world of changes a "permanent matter". Let us then examine more closely what this "permanent matter", this "duration in change" is actually all about.

[ 20 ] When I confront my eye with a red surface, the sensation of red arises in my consciousness. We now have to distinguish between the beginning, duration and end of this sensation. The temporary sensation is now to be contrasted with a permanent objective process, which as such is again objectively limited in time, i.e. has a beginning, duration and end. This process, however, should take place in a matter that is beginningless and endless, i.e. indestructible, eternal. This is supposed to be what is actually permanent in the alternation of processes. The conclusion would perhaps have some justification if the concept of time were correctly applied to sensation in the above manner. But must we not make a strict distinction between the content of the sensation and its occurrence? In my perception, both are certainly one and the same; for the content of the sensation must be present in it, otherwise it would not come into consideration for me at all. But is it not quite indifferent to this content, taken purely as such, that it enters my consciousness at this very moment in time and leaves it again after such and such a number of seconds? That which constitutes the content of the sensation, i.e. that which alone objectively comes into consideration, is quite independent of this. But this cannot be regarded as an essential condition of the existence of a thing that is completely indifferent to its content.

[ 21 ] But even for an objective process that has a beginning and an end, our application of the concept of time is not correct. If a new property appears in a certain thing, remains for some time in various states of development and then disappears again, then here too we must regard the content of this property as the essential thing. And as such, this has absolutely nothing to do with the concepts of beginning, duration and end. By the essential here we understand that by which a thing is actually precisely what it presents itself as. It is not that something appears in a certain moment of time, but what appears that matters. The sum of all these determinations expressed with the "what" constitutes the content of the world. Now this "what" lives itself out in the most diverse determinations, in the most diverse forms. All these forms are related to each other, they are mutually dependent. As a result, they enter into a relationship of separation according to space and time. But the concept of matter only owes its origin to a completely misguided understanding of the concept of time. One would believe the world to evaporate into an insubstantial semblance if one did not think of the changing sum of events as being underpinned by something that persists in time, something unchanging that remains while its determinants change. But time is not a vessel in which changes take place; it is not before things and outside them. Time is the sensory expression for the fact that the facts are dependent on each other in a sequence according to their content. Let us assume that we are dealing with the complex of facts a1 b1 c1 d1 e1 to be perceived. The other complex a2 b2 c2 d2 e2 depends on it with inner necessity; I can see the content of the latter if I allow it to emerge ideally from the former. Now let us assume that both complexes appear. For what we discussed earlier is the completely nontemporal and nonspatial nature of these complexes. If a2 b2 c2 d2 e2. is to appear in the phenomenon, then a1 b1 c1 d1 e1 must also be a phenomenon, and in such a way that now a2 b2 c2 d2 e2 also appears in its dependence on it. That is, the appearance a1 b1 c1 d1 e1 must be there, making way for the appearance a2 b2 c2 d2 e2, whereupon the latter appears. Here we see that time only appears where the being of a thing enters the appearance . Time belongs to the world of appearance. It has nothing to do with the essence itself. This essence can only be grasped ideally. Only those who are unable to complete this regression from appearance to essence in their thought processes hypostatize time as something that precedes the facts. But then he needs an existence that outlasts the changes. He conceives of indestructible matter as such. He has thus created a thing that time should not harm, a thing that persists in all change. Actually, however, he has only shown his inability to penetrate from the temporal appearance of facts to their essence, which has nothing to do with time. Can I say of the essence of a fact: it comes into being or passes away? I can only say that its content conditions another, and that this condition then appears as a sequence of times. The essence of a thing cannot be destroyed; for it is beyond all time and itself conditions the latter. With this we have at the same time thrown light on two concepts for which little understanding is yet to be found, on being and appearance. Whoever understands the matter correctly in our way cannot look for proof of the indestructibility of the essence of a thing, because destruction includes the concept of time, which has nothing to do with essence.

[ 22 ] After these explanations, we can say: The sensory world view is the sum of metamorphosing perceptual contents without an underlying matter.

[ 23 ] But our remarks have shown us something else. We have seen that we cannot speak of a subjective character of perceptions. If we have a perception, we can follow the processes from the exciter to our central organ: nowhere will we find a point here where the leap from the objectivity of what is not perceived to the subjectivity of perception can be demonstrated. This refutes the subjective character of the world of perception. The world of perception stands there as a content based on itself, which for the time being has nothing to do with subject and object.

[ 24 ] Of course, the above statement only refers to the concept of matter that physics bases its observations on and which it identifies with the old, equally incorrect concept of substance in metaphysics. Matter as the actual real underlying phenomena is something else; matter as phenomenon, as appearance, is something else. The former concept alone is the subject of our consideration. The latter is not affected by it. For when I call that which fills space "matter", this is merely a word for a phenomenon to which no higher reality is ascribed than to other phenomena. I only have to keep this character of matter constantly present in my mind.

[ 25 ] The world of what presents itself to us as perceptions, i.e. extension, motion, rest, force, light, heat, color, sound, electricity, etc., that is the object of all science..

[ 26 ] If the perceived image of the world were such that it appeared to us as it appears to our senses, unclouded in its essence, in other words, if everything that appears in appearance were a perfect impression of the inner essence of things, undisturbed by anything, then science would be the most unnecessary thing in the world. For the task of knowledge would already be fully and completely fulfilled in perception. Indeed, we would not be able to distinguish between essence and appearance at all. Both would completely coincide as identical.

[ 27 ] But this is not the case. Let us assume that the element A contained in the factual world is in a certain connection with the element B. According to our explanations, both elements are of course nothing more than phenomena. The connection appears again as a phenomenon. We will call this phenomenon C. What we can now determine within the world of facts is the relationship between A, B and C. Now, in addition to A, B and C, there are an infinite number of such elements in the perceptible world. Let us take an arbitrary fourth, D; let it be added, and everything will immediately present itself as modified. Instead of A, in association with B, having C in its wake, the addition of D will give rise to an essentially different phenomenon E.

[ 28 ] This is what matters. When we encounter a phenomenon, we see it conditioned in many ways. We must look for all relationships if we are to understand the phenomenon. But these relationships are different, closer and more distant. The fact that a phenomenon E confronts me is caused by other phenomena in closer or more distant relationships. Some are absolutely necessary for such a phenomenon to arise at all, others would not prevent such a phenomenon from arising if they were absent; but they do require that it arise just that way. From this we see that we must distinguish between necessary and accidental conditions of a phenomenon. Phenomena that arise in such a way that only the necessary conditions are involved can be called original, the others derived. If we understand the original phenomena from their conditions, then we can also understand the derived ones by adding new conditions.

[ 29 ] This is where the task of science becomes clear to us. It has to penetrate the phenomenal world to such an extent that it seeks out phenomena that are only dependent on necessary conditions. And the linguistic-conceptual expression for such necessary connections are the laws of nature..

[ 30 ] When one confronts a sphere of phenomena, then, as soon as one has gone beyond mere description and registration, one must first determine those elements that necessarily determine each other and present them as primordial phenomena. To this, one must then add those conditions that are already in a more distant relation to those elements in order to see how they modify those original phenomena.

[ 31 ] This is the relationship of science to the world of appearances: in the latter, the phenomena appear entirely as derived, and are therefore incomprehensible from the outset; in the former, the original phenomena appear at the top and the derived ones as a consequence, whereby the whole context becomes comprehensible. The system of science differs from the system of nature in that in the latter the connection of phenomena is established by reason and thereby made intelligible. Science has never, ever to add anything to the world of appearances, but only to lay bare the veiled relations of the same. All use of the intellect must be confined to the latter work. By going back to a non-appearance in order to explain the appearances, the intellect and all scientific activity exceed their authority.

[ 32 ] Only those who understand the absolute correctness of our derivations can understand Goethe's Theory of Colors. Thinking about what else a perception such as light or color is, apart from the entity as which they appear, was far from Goethe's mind. For he knew the power of intelligent thought. Light was given to him as a sensation. If he now wanted to explain the connection between light and color, this could not be done by speculation, but only by a primary phenomenon in which he sought out the necessary condition that must be added to light in order for color to arise. Newton also saw color occurring in connection with light, but he was now thinking speculatively: How does color arise from light. This was in his speculative way of thinking; it was not in Goethe's representational and correctly self-understanding way of thinking. Therefore, Newton's assumption that "light is composed of colored lights" must have seemed to him to be the result of incorrect speculation. He only considered himself entitled to say something about the relation of light and color by adding a condition, but not about light itself by adding a speculative concept. Hence his sentence: "Light is the simplest, most undissected, most homogeneous being that we know. It is not composed..." All statements about the composition of light are only statements of the mind about a phenomenon. The authority of the mind, however, only extends to statements about the coherence of phenomena..

[ 33 ] This reveals the deeper reason why Goethe, when he looked through the prism, could not confess to Newton's theory. The prism should have been the first condition for the creation of color. However, another condition, the presence of a dark, proved to be more original for its creation; the prism only as the second condition.

[ 34 ] With these arguments I believe that I have removed all obstacles for the reader of Goethe's Theory of Colors that obstruct the path to this work.

[ 35 ] If this difference between the two color theories had not always been sought in two contradictory interpretations, which one then simply wanted to examine for their justification, then Goethe's Theory of Colors would have long since been appreciated in its high scientific significance. Only those who are completely filled with such fundamentally false ideas as that one must go back from the perceptions to the cause of the perceptions through intelligent reflection can still raise the question in the way that modern physics does. But he who has really realized that to explain phenomena means nothing else than to observe them in a connection established by the intellect, must accept Goethe's theory of colors in principle. For it is the consequence of a correct view of the relationship of our thinking to nature. Newton did not have this view. Of course, it does not occur to me to want to defend all the details of Goethe's theory of color. What I want to uphold is only the principle. But it cannot be my task here either to derive from his principle the phenomena of color theory that were still unknown in Goethe's time. Should I one day be fortunate enough to have the leisure and means to write a color theory in Goethe's sense that is completely at the height of the modern achievements of natural science, then only the task I have indicated could be solved in such a work. I would consider this to be one of the most beautiful tasks of my life. This introduction could only extend to the scientifically rigorous justification of Goethe's way of thinking in the Theory of Colors. In what follows, some light will now also be thrown on its inner structure.

3. The system of natural science

[ 36 ] It could easily appear as if, with our investigations, which only grant thinking a power aimed at summarizing perceptions, we ourselves are now calling into question the independent meaning of the concepts and ideas for which we first so energetically advocated.

[ 37 ] Only an inadequate interpretation of this investigation can lead to this view.

[ 38 ] What does thinking achieve when it carries out the connection of perceptions?

[ 39 ] Let us consider two perceptions A and B. These are initially given to us as non-conceptual entities. I cannot transform the qualities that are given to my sensory perception into something else through conceptual reflection. Nor can I find any mental quality through which I could construct that which is given in sensory reality if I lacked perception. I can never give a red-blind person an idea of the quality "red", even if I describe it to him conceptually by every conceivable means. Sensory perception thus has something that never enters into the concept; something that must be perceived if it is to become the object of our knowledge at all. So what role does the concept that we associate with any sense perception play? It obviously has to bring about a completely independent element, something new, which certainly belongs to sense perception, but which does not appear in sense perception.

[ 40 ] Now, however, it is certain that this new "something" that the concept brings to sense perception only expresses that which meets our need for explanation. We are only able to understand any element in the world of the senses when we have a concept of it. We can always point to what sensory reality offers us; and anyone who has the opportunity to perceive the element in question knows what it is. Through the concept we are able to say something about the world of the senses that cannot be perceived.

[ 41 ] But from this the following immediately becomes clear. If the essence of sense perception were exhausted in the sensory quality, then something completely new could not be added in the form of the concept. Sense perception is therefore not a totality at all, but only one side of such a totality. And that is the side that can only be looked at. It is only through the concept that what we are looking at becomes clear to us.

[ 42 ] Now we can express the contentual meaning of what we have developed methodologically in the previous chapter: It is only through the conceptual apprehension of a given in the sense world that the Ws of the given in the gazing comes to appear. We cannot express the content of what is seen because this content is exhausted in the how of what is seen, i.e. in the form of its appearance. Thus we find in the concept the what, the other content of what is given in the sensory world in the form of perception.

[ 43 ] It is therefore only in the concept that the world acquires its full content. But now we have found that the concept refers us beyond the individual appearance to the context of things. Thus that which appears separately and isolated in the world of the senses presents itself to the concept as a unified whole. In this way, our scientific methodology gives rise to monistic natural science as the ultimate goal; but it is not abstract monism, which already presupposes unity and then subsumes the individual facts of concrete existence under it in a forced manner, but concrete monism, which shows piece by piece that the apparent multiplicity of sense existence ultimately proves to be only an ideal unity. Multiplicity is only a form in which the unified content of the world expresses itself. The senses, which are incapable of grasping this unified content, cling to multiplicity; they are born pluralists. Thought, however, overcomes multiplicity and thus returns to the unified world principle through a long labor.

[ 44 ] Now the way how the concept (the idea) lives itself out in the world of the senses makes the difference between the kingdoms of nature. If the sensually real being only attains such an existence that it stands completely outside the concept, is only governed by it as a law in its changes, then we call this being inorganic. Everything that happens to such a being is due to the influences of another being; and how the two interact can be explained by an external law. In this sphere we have to do with phenomena and laws which, if they are original, can be called original phenomena. In this case, therefore, the conceptual to be perceived stands outside a perceived multiplicity.

[ 45 ] However, a sensible unity itself can already point beyond itself; if we want to grasp it, it can compel us to proceed to further determinations than those perceptible to us. Then the conceptually graspable appears as a sensuous unity. The two, concept and perception, are not identical, but the concept does not appear outside the sensory manifold as a law, but within it as a principle. It underlies it as the thing that asserts it and is no longer sensually perceptible, which we call type. This is what organic natural science has to do with.

[ 46 ] But even here the concept does not yet appear in its own form as a concept, but only as a type. Where it now no longer appears merely as such, as an asserting principle, but in its conceptual form itself, it appears as consciousness, where that which is present only in essence on the lower levels finally appears. Here the concept itself becomes perception. We are dealing with the self-conscious human being.

[ 47 ] Natural law, type, concept are the three forms in which the ideal lives itself out. The law of nature is abstract, standing above sensory diversity; it dominates inorganic natural science. Here idea and reality fall completely apart. The type already unites both in one being. The spiritual becomes a working being, but it does not yet work as such, it is not there as such, but must, if it is to be regarded according to its existence, be viewed as sensuous. So it is in the realm of organic nature. The concept is present in a perceptible way. In human consciousness, the concept itself is the perceptible. View and idea coincide. It is precisely the ideal that is perceived. That is why the ideal kernels of existence of the lower levels of nature can also appear on this level. With human consciousness, the possibility is given that what is mere but not appearing on the lower levels of existence now also becomes appearing reality.

4 The System of the Theory of Colors

[ 48 ] Goethe's work falls into a time in which the striving for an absolute knowledge that finds its satisfaction in itself powerfully filled all minds. Cognition once again ventured with holy zeal to investigate all means of knowledge in order to come closer to the solution of the highest questions. The age of Oriental theosophy, Plato and Aristotle, then Descartes and Spinoza are the representatives of an equally inward deepening in the preceding epochs of world history. Goethe is inconceivable without Kant, Fichte, Schelling and Hegel. While these spirits were above all characterized by a gaze into the depths, an eye for the highest, his gaze rested on the things of immediate reality. But in this contemplation lies something of that depth itself. Goethe practiced this gaze in the contemplation of nature. The spirit of that time is poured out like a fluid over his contemplations of nature. Hence the forcefulness of it, which always retains the great trait in the contemplation of details. Goethe's science always goes to the center.

[ 49 ] We can see this more than anywhere else in Goethe's Theory of Colors. Alongside the experiment on the metamorphosis of plants, it has become a self-contained whole. And what a strictly closed system it represents, demanded by the nature of the thing itself!

[ 50 ] Let us take a look at this structure according to its inner structure.

[ 51 ] The necessary prerequisite for the appearance of anything that is founded in the essence of nature is that there is an occasional cause, an organ, in which the aforementioned is represented. The eternal, iron laws of nature would indeed prevail, even if they never manifested themselves in a human spirit, but their manifestation as such would not be possible. They would only be there in essence, not in appearance. It would be the same with the world of light and color if no perceiving eye confronted them. Color must not be derived from the eye according to its essence in the Schopenhauerian manner, but the possibility of color appearing must be demonstrated in the eye. The eye does not cause the color, but it is the cause of its appearance.

[ 52 ] This is where color theory must begin. It must examine the eye, expose its nature. This is why Goethe places the physiological theory of color at the beginning. But even there his conception is essentially different from what is usually understood by this part of optics. He does not want to explain the functions of the eye from its structure, but he wants to observe the eye under different conditions in order to gain knowledge of its abilities and capabilities. His process here is also essentially one of observation. What happens when light and darkness act on the eye; what happens when limited images enter into a relationship with the eye, etc.? He does not initially ask what processes take place in the eye when this or that perception comes about, but rather seeks to fathom what can come about through the eye in the living act of seeing. This is the only important question for his purpose. Strictly speaking, the other does not belong to the field of physiological color theory, but to the study of the human organism, i.e. to general physiology. Goethe is only concerned with the eye insofar as it sees and not with the explanation of vision from those perceptions that we can make of the dead eye.

[ 53 ] From there he moves on to the objective processes that cause the phenomena of color. And here it is important to note that by these objective processes Goethe by no means has in mind the no longer perceptible hypothetical material or movement processes, but that he remains entirely within the perceptible world. His physical theory of color, which forms the second part, seeks the conditions that are independent of the eye and are related to the formation of colors. However, these conditions are still perceptions. Here he investigates how colors are created with the help of the prism, the lens, etc. on the light. For the time being, however, he stops at pursuing color as such in its development, observing how it arises in itself, separated from bodies.

[ 54 ] It is only in a separate chapter, the chemical theory of color, that he moves on to the fixed colors that adhere to bodies. If the physiological theory of color answers the question of how colors can appear at all, and the physical theory answers the question of how colors come about under external conditions, then here he answers the problem of how the physical world appears as colored

.

[ 55 ] So Goethe progresses from the consideration of color as an attribute of the phenomenal world to the latter itself as appearing in that attribute. He does not stop here, but finally considers the higher relationship of the colored physical world to the soul in the chapter: "The Sensual and Moral Effect of Color..."

[ 56 ] This is the strict, closed path of a science: from the subject as the condition back again to the subject as the being satisfying itself in and with its world.

[ 57 ] Who will not recognize here the urge of time - from the subject to the object and back again to the subject - that led Hegel to the architectonics of his entire system?

[ 58 ] In this sense, Goethe's main optical work appears to be the "Entwurf einer Farbenlehre". The two pieces: "Beiträge zur Optik" and the "Elemente der Farbenlehre" must be regarded as preliminary studies. The "Revelations of Newton's Theory" are merely a polemical addition to his work.

5 The Goethean concept of space

[ 59 ] Since a full understanding of Goethe's work in physics is only possible with a view of space that coincides completely with Goethe's, we want to develop it here. Whoever wishes to arrive at this view must have gained the following conviction from our previous explanations: 1. the things that confront us in experience as individuals have an inner relation to one another. They are in truth held together by a unified world-bond. There is a common principle in them all. (2) When our mind approaches things and strives to embrace what is separate through a spiritual bond, the conceptual unity that it creates is not external to the objects, but is drawn from the inner essence of nature itself. Human cognition is not a process that takes place outside of things and arises from mere subjective arbitrariness, but what emerges in our mind as natural law, what lives itself out in our soul, is the heartbeat of the universe itself.

[ 60 ] For our present purpose, let us consider the most external relationship that our mind establishes between the objects of experience. Let us consider the simplest case in which experience prompts us to do mental work. Let two simple elements of the phenomenal world be given. In order not to complicate our investigation, we will take something as simple as possible, e.g. two luminous points. Let us completely disregard the fact that in each of these luminous points we may already have something tremendously complicated before us which presents our spirit with a task. Let us also disregard the quality of the concrete elements of the sense-world which we have before us, and consider solely the circumstance that we have before us two elements which are separate from each other, i.e. which appear separate to the senses. Two factors, each of which is capable of making an impression on our senses: that is all we presuppose. Let us further assume that the existence of one of these factors does not exclude that of the other. An organ of perception can perceive both.

[ 61 ] For if we assume that the existence of one element is in some way dependent on that of the other, we are faced with a problem different from our present one. If the existence of B is such that it excludes the existence of A and yet is dependent on it in its essence, then A and B must be in a time relationship. For the dependence of B on A, if one imagines at the same time that the existence of B excludes that of A, requires that the latter precedes the former. But that belongs on another page.

[ 62 ] For our present purpose, we do not want to assume such a relationship. We presuppose that the things we are dealing with are not mutually exclusive with respect to their existence, but are rather coexistent entities. If we dispense with every relationship demanded by inner nature, then all that remains is that there is a relationship between the special qualities, that I can pass from one to the other. I can pass from one element of experience to the second. There can be no doubt in anyone's mind as to what kind of relationship I can establish between things without going into their nature, into their essence itself. Whoever asks himself what transition can be found from one thing to another, if the thing itself remains indifferent, must necessarily give himself the answer: space. Every other relationship must be based on the qualitative nature of that which appears separately in the existence of the world. Only space takes no account of anything other than the fact that things are separate. If I consider: A is above, B below, then I am completely indifferent to what A and B are. I associate no other idea with them than that they are separate factors of the world I perceive with my senses.

[ 63 ] What our mind wants when it approaches experience is: it wants to overcome particularity, it wants to show that the power of the whole can be seen in the individual. In spatial perception, it wants to overcome nothing else but particularity as such. He wants to establish the most general relationship. That A and B are not each a world apart, but belong to a commonality, is what spatial observation says. This is the meaning of coexistence. If each thing were an entity in itself, then there would be no coexistence. I could not establish a relationship between beings at all.

[ 64 ] We will now examine what follows from this establishment of an external relationship between two particulars. I can only think of two elements in one way in such a relationship. I think A next to B. I can now do the same with two other elements of the sensory world C and D. I have thereby established a concrete relation between A and B and such a relation between C and D. I will now dispense with the elements A, B, C and D altogether and relate only the two concrete relations to each other again. It is clear that I can relate them to each other as two particular entities in the same way as A and B themselves. What I refer to each other here are concrete relations. I can call them a and b. If I now go one step further, I can relate a to b again. But now I have already lost all specificity. When I look at a, I no longer find any particular A and B, which are related to each other; just as little with b. In both I find nothing other than that there is a reference at all. But this determination is quite the same in a and b. What made it possible for me to keep a and b apart was that they referred to A, B, C and D. If I leave out this remainder of particularities and only refer a and b to each other, i.e. the fact that they were referred to at all (not that something specific was referred to), then I have arrived again quite generally at the spatial relationship from which I started. I can go no further. I have achieved what I was striving for before: the space itself stands before my soul..

[ 65 ] Therein lies the secret of the three dimensions. In the first dimension, I relate two concrete phenomenal elements of the sensory world to each other; in the second dimension, I relate these spatial relationships to each other myself. I have established a relationship between relationships. I have stripped away the concrete phenomena, the concrete relationships have remained with me. Now I relate them to each other spatially. That means: I completely disregard the fact that they are concrete relationships; but then I have to find quite the same thing that I find in the one in the second. I establish relationships between equals. Now the possibility of relating ceases, because the difference ceases.

[ 66 ] What I previously assumed as the point of view of my contemplation, the completely external relationship, I have now reached again myself as a sensory conception; from spatial contemplation, after I have performed the operation three times, I have come to space, i.e. to my starting point.

[ 67 ] Therefore, space can only have three dimensions. What we have done here with the concept of space is actually only a special case of the method we always use when we approach things. We place concrete objects under a general point of view. In this way we gain concepts of the details; we then look at these concepts again from the same point of view, so that we then only have the concepts of the concepts before us; if we also combine these, then they merge into that ideal unity which could no longer be brought under one point of view with anything other than itself. Let us take a special example. I get to know two people: A and B. I look at them from the point of view of friendship. In this case I will get a very definite idea a of the friendship of the two people. I now look at two other people, C and D, from the same point of view. I get a different concept b of this friendship. Now I can go further and relate these two concepts of friendship to each other. What I am left with, if I look away from the concrete I have gained, is the concept of friendship in general. However, I can also obtain this in reality if I consider people E and F from the same point of view, as well as G and H. In this as in countless other cases, I can maintain the concept of friendship in general. But all these concepts are essentially identical with each other; and when I look at them from the same point of view, it turns out that I have found a unity. I have returned to what I started from.

[ 68 ] The space is thus the view of things, a way in which our mind summarizes them into a unity. The three dimensions behave in the following way. The first dimension establishes a relationship between two sensory perceptions. ^{101Sense perception here means the same as what Kant calls sensation.} It is therefore a concrete idea. The second dimension relates two concrete ideas to each other and thus enters the realm of abstraction. Finally, the third dimension only establishes the ideal unity between the abstractions. It is therefore quite incorrect to regard the three dimensions of space as completely synonymous. Which one is the first naturally depends on the perceived elements. But then the others have a quite definite and different meaning than this first one. It was quite erroneously assumed by Kant that he conceived of space as totum instead of as an entity that can be conceptually determined in itself.

[ 69 ] We have so far spoken of space as a relation, a relationship. But now the question arises: Is there only this relationship of juxtaposition? Or is there an absolute determination of location for every thing? The latter is of course not affected by our explanations above. But let us examine whether there is such a relationship of location, a very specific "there". What do I really mean when I speak of such a "there"? Nothing other than that I am indicating an object to which the object in question is directly adjacent. "There" means in the neighborhood of an object designated by me. However, this reduces the absolute indication of location to a spatial relationship. The implied investigation is therefore not necessary.

[ 70 ] Let us now raise the question: According to the preceding investigations, what is space? Nothing other than a necessity inherent in things to overcome their particularity in a completely external way, without going into their essence, and to unite them into a unity that is already external as such. Space is therefore a way of grasping the world as a unity. Space is an idea. Not, as Kant believed, a perception.

6 Goethe, Newton and the physicists

[ 71 ] When Goethe began to contemplate the nature of colors, it was essentially an interest in art that drew him to this subject. His intuitive mind soon recognized that the use of color in painting was subject to a profound law. He was unable to discover what this lawfulness consisted of himself as long as he was only theorizing in the field of painting, nor were trained painters able to give him any satisfactory information about it. They knew practically how to mix and apply the colors, but could not express themselves in terms. When Goethe encountered not only the most sublime works of art of this kind in Italy, but also the most colourful nature, the urge to recognize the natural laws of color awoke in him particularly powerfully.

[ 72 ] Goethe himself makes a detailed confession about the historical in the "History of the Theory of Colors". Here we will only discuss the psychological and factual aspects.

[ 73 ] Goethe's color studies began immediately after his return from Italy. These became particularly intense in 1790 and 1791, and then continued to occupy the poet until the end of his life.

[ 74 ] We must consider the state of Goethe's world view at this time, at the beginning of his color studies. At that time he had already conceived his great idea of the metamorphosis of organic beings. His discovery of the intermaxillary bone had already given him a view of the unity of all natural existence. The individual appeared to him as a particular modification of the ideal principle that governs the whole of nature. He had already stated in his letters from Italy that a plant is only a plant because it carries the "idea of the plant" within it. He regarded this idea as something concrete, as a unity filled with spiritual content in all particular plants. It could not be grasped with the eyes of the body, but could be grasped with the eye of the spirit. Anyone who can see it, sees it in every plant.

[ 75 ] Thus the whole realm of plants and, if this view is further developed, the whole realm of nature in general appears as a unity to be grasped with the mind.

[ 76 ] But no one is able to construct the diversity that appears before the external senses from the mere idea. The intuitive mind is able to recognize the idea. The individual formations are only accessible to it when it directs the senses outwards, when it observes, looks. The reason why a modification of the idea appears in precisely this way and not otherwise as a sensory reality does not have to be worked out, but searched in the realm of reality.

[ 77 ] This is Goethe's peculiar way of looking at things, which can probably best be characterized as empirical idealism. It can be summarized with the words: The things of a sensual multiplicity, insofar as they are similar, are based on a spiritual unity which brings about this similarity and togetherness.

[ 78 ] Based on this point, the question arose for Goethe: What spiritual unity underlies the multiplicity of color perceptions? What do I perceive in every color modification? And it soon became clear to him that light was the necessary basis of every color. No color without light. But colors are the modifications of light. And now he had to look for the element in reality that modifies and specifies light. He found that this was lightless matter, active darkness, in short, the opposite of light. Thus for him every color was light modified by darkness. It is completely incorrect to believe that Goethe meant by light the concrete sunlight that is usually called "white light". It is only the fact that one cannot get rid of this idea and regards sunlight, composed in such a complicated way, as the representative of light itself that prevents the understanding of Goethe's color theory. Light, as Goethe conceives it, and as he contrasts it with darkness as its opposite, is a purely spiritual entity, simply that which is common to all color sensations. Even if Goethe did not state this clearly anywhere, his entire color theory is designed in such a way that only this can be understood by it. When he experiments with sunlight in order to carry out his theory, the reason for this is only that sunlight, although it is the result of such complicated processes as occur in the solar body, nevertheless presents itself to us as a unity which contains its parts in itself only as dissolved ones. What we gain for the theory of color with the help of sunlight is, however, only an approximation of reality. Goethe's theory should not be understood as if, according to it, light and darkness were actually contained in every color. No, but the real that confronts our eye is only a certain nuance of color. Only the mind is able to separate this sensory fact into two spiritual entities: Light and non-light.

[ 79 ] The external events through which this occurs, the material processes in matter, are not affected in the least. That is a completely different matter. That a vibrational process takes place in the ether while "red" appears in front of me is not to be disputed. But what really brings about a perception has, as we have already shown, nothing at all to do with the being of the content.

[ 80 ] You will object: But it can be shown that everything about sensation is subjective and only the process of movement that underlies it is what really exists apart from our brains. Then one could not speak of a physical theory of perceptions at all, but only of such a theory of the underlying processes of movement. With this proof it is approximately like this: If someone at a place A. sends a telegram to me, who am in B., then what I receive from the telegram has completely originated in B. It is the telegraphist in B.; he writes on paper that was never in A., with ink that was never in A.; he himself does not know A. at all, etc.; in short, it can be proved that nothing at all from A. has flowed into what I have. Nevertheless, everything that comes from B. is quite indifferent to the content, the essence of the telegram; what comes into consideration for me is only mediated through B. If I want to explain the essence of the content of the telegram, then I must completely disregard that which derives from B.

[ 81 ] The same applies to the world of the eye. The theory must extend to what is perceptible to the eye and within it seek the connections. The material spatio-temporal processes may be quite important for the causation of perceptions; they have nothing to do with the being of the same.

[ 82 ] The same applies to the question often discussed today: whether the various natural phenomena: Light, heat, electricity etc. are not based on one and the same form of motion in the ether? Hertz has recently shown that the propagation of electrical effects in space is subject to the same laws as the propagation of light effects. From this we can conclude that waves, as they are the carrier of light, also underlie electricity. It has already been assumed that only one type of wave motion is active in the solar spectrum, which, depending on whether it falls on heat-, light- or chemical-sensing reagents, produces heat, light or chemical effects.

[ 83 ] But this is clear from the outset. If one investigates what happens in the spatially extended while the entities in question are being conveyed, then one must arrive at a uniform movement. For a medium in which only movement is possible must react to everything through movement. It will also accomplish all the mediations that it must undertake through movement. When I then examine the forms of this movement, I do not find out what the mediated is, but how it is brought to me. It is simply absurd to say that heat or light are movement. Movement is only the reaction of movable matter to light.

[ 84 ] Goethe himself experienced the wave theory and saw nothing in it that could not be reconciled with his conviction of the nature of color.

[ 85 ] You only have to get rid of the idea that light and darkness are real entities in Goethe's work, but see them as mere principles, spiritual entities; then you will gain a completely different view of his theory of color than you usually form. If, like Newton, one understands light to be only a mixture of all colors, then any concept of the concrete being "light" disappears. It completely evaporates into an empty general idea that corresponds to nothing in reality. Such abstractions were alien to Goethe's view of the world. For him, every idea had to have concrete content. But for him, the "concrete" did not end with the "physical".

[ 86 ] Modern physics does not actually have a concept for "light". It only knows specified lights, colors that create the impression of white in certain mixtures. But even this "white" must not be identified with light itself. White is actually nothing more than a mixed color. Modern physics does not recognize "light" in Goethe's sense; neither does "darkness". Goethe's theory of color thus moves in an area that does not even touch on the definitions of physicists. Physics simply does not know any of the basic concepts of Goethe's Theory of Colors. It therefore cannot judge this theory from its point of view. Goethe begins where physics ends.

[ 87 ] It is evidence of a very superficial understanding of the matter if one continually speaks of Goethe's relationship to Newton and to modern physics and does not even consider that this refers to two quite different ways of looking at the world.

[ 88 ] We are convinced that anyone who has grasped our discussion of the nature of sensory perception in the correct sense can gain no other impression of Goethe's theory of color than the one described. Whoever, of course, does not admit these fundamental theories of ours, remains on the standpoint of physical optics and thus also rejects Goethe's theory of colors.*