prejudice of the individual are all-influential. We must, however, add the qualifying words, "as far as the individual is concerned." For in science there exists, apart from the individual, objective truth; and the fate of Goethe's own theory, though commended to us by so great a name, illustrates how, in the progress of humanity, the individual, if he err, is left stranded and forgotten—truth, independent of the individual, being more and more grafted on to that tree of knowledge which is the property of the human race.
The imagined ruin of Newton's theory did not satisfy Goethe's desire for completeness. He would explore the ground of Newton's error, and show how it was that one so highly gifted could employ his gifts for the enunciation and diffusion of such unmitigated nonsense. It was impossible to solve the riddle on purely intellectual grounds. Scientific enigmas, he says, are often only capable of ethical solution, and with this maxim in his mind he applies himself, in the second volume of the "Farbenlehre," to the examination of "Newton's Persönlichkeit." He seeks to connect him with, or rather to detach him from, the general character of the English nation that sturdy and competent race which prizes above all things the freedom of individual action. Newton was born in a storm-tossed time—none, indeed, more pregnant in the history of the world. He was a year old when Charles I. was beheaded, and he lived to see the First George upon the throne. The shock of parties was in his ears, changes of ministries, parliaments, and armies were occurring before his eyes while the throne itself, instead of passing on by inheritance, was taken possession of by a stranger. What, asks Goethe, are we to think of a man who could put aside the claims, seductions, and passions incident to such a time, for the purpose of tranquilly following out his bias as an investigator?
So singular a character arrests the poet's attention. He had laid down his theory of colors; he must add to it a theory of Newton. The great German is here at home, and Newton could probably no more have gone into these disquisitions regarding character than Goethe could have developed the physical theories of Newton. He prefaces his sketch of his rival's character by reflections and considerations regarding character in general. Every living thing, down to the worm that wriggles when trod upon, has a character of its own. In this sense even the weak and cowardly have characters, for they will give up the honor and fame which most men prize highest, so that they may vegetate in safety and comfort. But the word character is usually applied to the case of an individual with great qualities, who pursues his object undeviatingly, and without permitting either difficulty or danger to deflect him from his course.
"Although here, as in other cases," says Goethe, "it is the exuberant (Ueberschwängliche) that impresses the imagination, it must not be imagined that this attribute has anything to do with moral feeling.
