The Damnation of Newton: Goethe's Color Theory and Romantic Perception [Reprint 2012 ed.] 9783110850277, 9783110107654

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Frederick Burwick The Damnation of Newton

Quellen und Forschungen zur Sprach- und Kulturgeschichte der germanischen Völker Begründet von

Bernhard Ten Brink und Wilhelm Scherer Neue Folge Herausgegeben von

Stefan Sonderegger

86 (210)

w DE

G Walter de Gruyter · Berlin • New York 1986

The Damnation of Newton: Goethe's Color Theory and Romantic Perception by

Frederick Burwick

w DE

Walter de Gruyter · Berlin · New York 1986

Printed on acid free paper (ageing-resistant - pH7, neutral)

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of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication

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Burwick, Frederick.

The damnation of Newton.

(Quellen und Forschungen zur Sprach- und Kulturgeschichte der germanischen Völker ; n. F. ; 86 (210)) Bibliography: p. Includes index. 1. Goethe, Johann Wolfgang von, 1749-1832 - Zur Farbenlehre. 2. Goethe, Johann Wolfgangvon, 1749-1832-Knowledge-Science. 3. Goethe, Johann Wolfgangvon, 1749-1832-Aesthetics. 4. Color. 5. Visual perception. 6. German literature - 19th century - History and criticism. 7. Romanticism - Germany. 8. English literature 19th century - History and criticism. 9. Romanticism - England. 10. Literature, Comparative - German and English. 11. Literature, Comparative- English and German. I. Title. II. Series: Quellen und Forschungen zur Sprach- und Kulturgeschichte der germanischen Völker ; n. F. 86. PT2208.C7B87 1986 535.6'092'4 86-13455 ISBN 0-89925-207-9 (U. S. : alk. paper)

CIP-Kurztitelaufnahme

der Deutschen

Bibliothek

Burwick, Frederick:

The damnation of Newton: Goethe's color theory and romantic perception / by Frederick Burwick. Berlin ; New York : de Gruyter, 1986. (Quellen und Forschungen zur Sprach- und Kulturgeschichte der germanischen Völker ; N. F., 86 = 210) ISBN 3-11-010765-1 NE: GT

ISSN 0481-3596 © 1986 by Walter de Gruyter & Co., Berlin 30 Alle Rechte, insbesondere das der Ubersetzung in fremde Sprachen, vorbehalten. Ohne ausdrückliche Genehmigung des Verlages ist es nicht gestattet, dieses Buch oder Teile daraus auf fotomechanischem Wege (Fotokopie, Mikrokopie) zu vervielfältigen. Satz und Druck: Saladruck, Berlin Buchbindearbeiten: Lüderitz & Bauer, Berlin Printed in Germany

Contents Prelude in the Academy I. Goethe's Farbenlehre: The Newtonian Controversy II. Goethe's Entoptische Farben: The Problem of Polarity III. Goethe's Homunculus: The Mediation of Light IV. Novalis: Transcendental Physics and the Sidereal Man V. Achim von Arnim: The Galvanic Eye VI. Wordsworth: An Auxiliar Light VII. Coleridge and Jean Paul: The Look of Limbo VIII. Coleridge and Schlegel: The Glittering Eye IX. Shelley: The "Traces" oí Faust

1 9 54 80 102 139 176 210 235 255

Bibliography

275

Index

301

Prelude in the Academy When "The Damnation of Faust" emerged in the folk tradition of the sixteenth century, the story was fraught with the concerns over the revolutionary changes taking place in society: alchemy and astrology were being replaced by chemistry and astronomy; religious dogma and ecclesiastical hierarchy were being altered by the forces of the Reformation and Counter-Reformation; feudalism was giving way to a mercantile bourgeoisie. The historical Dr. Faustus was a contemporary of Copernicus, Paracelsus, and Nostradamus; of Luther, Erasmus, and More; of Dürer and Hans Sachs. Goethe saw in the Faustian story certain conditions that had peculiar relevance to his own age of radical changes in science, religion and politics. The telescope of Herschel, the "pneumatic" chemistry of Lavoisier, the battery of Volta were among the recent advances which particularly excited Goethe's interests in science. Next to Shakespeare and Spinoza, Linné had "die größte Wirkung" on his thinking and prompted his study of botany ("Geschichte meines botanischen Studiums," 1817). In religion, the profound influence of the Deists stirred his endeavor to redefine theodicy. In politics, Robespierre's "Reign of Terror" and Napoleon's lust for empire taught a conservative restraint to the author of Götz von Berlichingen. In 1798, Goethe wrote the prelude in the theater as the second of the three prologues to his Faust. The spirit of the age is addressed by the theater director, the playwright, and a merry member of the audience. Commercial interests are pitted against aesthetic ideals, and both must somehow satisfy the popular appetite for entertainment: Laßt Phantasie mit allen ihren Chören Vernunft, Verstand, Empfindung, Leidenschaft, Doch merkt euch wohl! nicht ohne Narrheit hören!

(11. 86-88)

The prelude in the theater concludes with the director's command to bring the light of the sun and moon, the theatrical machinery of the cosmos, into the action of the stage: Gebraucht das groß' und kleine Himmelslicht, Die Sterne dürfet ihr verschwenden; An Wasser, Feuer, Felsenwänden, An Tier und Vögeln fehlt es nicht. So schreitet in dem engen Bretterhaus

2

Prelude in the Academy Den ganzen Kreis der Schöpfung aus Und wandelt mit bedächt'ger Schnelle V o m Himmel durch die Welt zur Hölle.

(11.235-242)

The claim to open up the entire "Kreis der Schöpfung" may sound like grand theatrical presumption, but no less grand were Goethe's pretensions to create a true "Weltbühne" from the story of Faust, to transform the story into the drama of man's knowledge and passion. The need for a "Vorspiel" and a "Prolog" to Faust arose from the expectations and preconceptions about the drama and the Faustian story which he felt might interfere with the reception of this work. Thus his "Vorspiel" attempted to describe the causal conditions, culminating in the audience response to the dramatic production, as beginning with a poetic idea which must gain preeminence over literary form and theatrical conventions. The "Prolog" borrowed from the story of J o b to provide a new context for understanding the trial of Faust. In presenting his Farbenlehre, he recognized an even greater need for a prelude and a prologue to mitigate the "Mißbilligung der bis jetzt herrschenden Theorie" (Polemik, § 1). Such was Goethe's purpose in writing not only the "Polemischer Theil," but also the "Historischer Theil," which was "auch s c h o n . . . vielfach polemischer Art" (Eckermann, 15 May 1831). A third prologue, had Goethe been able to appraise the prevailing confusion of scientific versus philosophical approaches to the problems affecting the perception of light and color, might well have served his purpose more effectively than his polemics. In his history he set forth, clearly enough, the differing positions of Descartes, Huygens, Grimaldi, Boyle, and Newton, yet in summarizing the contributions of Malebranche, or of Voltaire, he drew no distinction between the epistemologica! and the scientific investigation of perception. A worthwhile prologue, a prelude in the academy, might have dealt with the issues of light and color as they had been debated not only by the physicists, but also by the physiologists, and the philosophers. Although his very involvement in the natural sciences would seem to confirm his belief that scientific inquiries are directly relevant to aesthetic and epistemological issues, his own commitment to "gegenständliches Denken," which he documented as early as "Der Versuch als Vermittler zwischen Subjekt und Objekt" (1793), made him chary of the introspective or subjective direction in perception theory. According to prevailing terminology, physical optics were objective and physiological optics subjective. N o t until the 1820's did Goethe learn, from Purkinje and Müller, that the subjective phenomena of retinal response could be objectively determined and scrutinized as "Gegenstände." Only late in his career did he admit the physiological ground of his Farbenlehre.

Prelude in the Academy

3

Berkeley and Hume had been so successful in separating the philosophical theory of sense perception from the empirical investigation, whether of physics or physiology, that Goethe was apparently willing to set it aside as a derivative, speculative, and essentially subjective mode of discourse. Nevertheless, in his attempt to explain the interaction of the subjective and objective in the act of seeing, he resorted to questions about the nature of perception similar to those discussed in Malebranche's De la recherche de la vérité (1674), Berkeley's An Essay toward a new Theory of Vision (1709), Condillac's Traité des sensations (1754), or Reid's Inquiry into the Human Mind (1764). The disparate presumptions of the physicist, physiologist, and philosopher were never brought into the Farbenlehre with that concert of purpose that unified the "Direktor, Theaterdichter, und Lustige Person" in the "Vorspiel auf dem Theater." The age of Faust had been the age of "Renaissance man," a time when the possibility of universal knowledge, mastery of the arts and sciences, still seemed to be open to the ambitious mind. Whether the awful separation and dispersion of intellectual endeavors, dubbed the "two cultures" by C. P. Snow, should be dated as a phenomenon of the Romantic age, might not seem likely. After all, Thomas Young, Humphry Davy, William Rowan Hamilton could all make serious claims to humanistic breadth, if not universality, in their intellectual accomplishments. Nevertheless, a rift between the arts and the sciences was evident, and a need was recognized to reconcile the apparent antagonism. Such was the theme of Humphry Davy's "Parallels between Art and Science" {The Director, No. 19, 30 May 1807) and Johann Ritter's Die Physik als Kunst (1806). Thomas De Quincey believed that the antagonistic developments had accelerated with dangerous rapidity; in 1845 he reported his alarm: Already, in this year 1845, what by the procession through fifty years of mighty revolutions amongst the kingdoms of the earth, what by the continual development of vast physical agencies - steam in all its applications, light getting under harness as a slave for man, powers from heaven descending upon education and accelerations of the press, powers from hell (as it might seem, but these also celestial) coming round upon artillery and the forces of destruction - the eye of the calmest observer is troubled; the brain is haunted as if by some jealousy of ghostly beings moving amongst us; and it becomes t o o evident that, unless this colossal pace of advance can be retarded (a thing not to be expected), or, which is happily more probable, can be met by counter-forces of corresponding magnitude - forces in the direction of religion or profound philosophy that shall radiate centrifugally against this storm of life so perilously centripetal towards the vortex of the merely human - left to itself, the natural tendency of so chaotic a tumult must be to evil (Blackwood's Magazine, March 1845).

Granting the impossibility of slowing down scientific progress, De Quincey urged an increased attention to religion and philosophy in

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order to restore the balance between the objective and the subjective, between the physical world and the introspective realm of consciousness. At the very beginning of the fifty-year period surveyed by D e Quincey, Goethe had convinced himself that a mediation, at least, was possible, and that the power of his mind was equal to whatever task of inquiry he might undertake. His success was not meagre. His contribution to science, more than his literary works, he confidently assured Eckermann (19 February 1829), would secure his place in history. Especially "in der schwierigen Wissenschaft der Farbenlehre," he was certain that he alone had offered the true explanation. Yet among all of his scientific endeavors, it was the color theory that aroused the most adamant opposition. For his contributions to plant morphology, Goethe's pretensions would seem justified. Indeed, the very term "Morphologie" was coined by Goethe; both phyllotaxy and classical flower theory were indebted to Goethe's observations on the "Spiraltendenz." In opposing Linné's system, John Lindley argued that "physiological characters are of greater importance than structural in regulating the natural classification of plants," and he acknowledged that "above all things, the adoption of the philosophical views of Goethe, together with the recognition of an universal unity of design," had been responsible for the progress in botanical science ( " O n the principal question at present debated in the Philosophy of Botany," Reports of the British Association for the Advancement of Science, Cambridge, 1833). In his History of the Inductive Sciences (1837), William Whewell gives prominence to "Goethe's views on the laws which connect the forms of plants into one simple system," and adds that "the same remarkable man, w h o . . . gave so great an impulse to vegetable morphology" also forwarded the study of animal morphology in his essay on the intermaxillary bone and his studies in comparative anatomy. Although he thus extolled Goethe's work in biology, he was more modest in appraising the studies in mineralogy; as for the Farbenlehre, he could only lament that Goethe had allowed "poetic imagination" to take the place of disciplined "geometrical thought" (quoted in Erwin Β. Wolff, " O n Goethe's Reputation as a Scientist in Nineteenth-Century England," German Life and Letters, VI [1962-63], 92-102). Achim von Arnim gave a similar appraisal of Goethe's scientific endeavor in his review of Dichtung und Wahrheit: D i e Mineralogen weigern sich nicht, ihn anzuerkennen, sie fühlen bey seinen Studien die Ergebung in den allgemeinen Zusammenhang des Gedachten, welche das wissenschaftliche Studium bezeichnet. Die Anatomen haben einigen Widerspruch, sie meinen Einzelheiten mehr als billig hervorgehoben, die zu nichts führen. Die Botaniker sind

Prelude in the Academy

5

schon verdrießlich, sie meynen, daß das Wort, die Metamorphose nichts gebe, es ließen sich vielleicht noch ein Paar andere erfinden, die bedeutungsreicher wären. Ganz ärgerlich sind aber die Physiker durch den heftigen Streit gegen Neuton, der sogar des absichtlichen Betruges in der Farbenlehre geziehen wird (Literatur-Blatt, N r . 66, 16 August 1822, 262).

"Der heftige Streit gegen N e u t o n " which Goethe conducted in the "Polemik" of his Farbenlehre was prompted in large part by his inability to understand the methods of physical optics. For all his effort to reassert the humanistic foundation and become the "Renaissance man" of his time, Goethe suffered one grand prejudice that is evident throughout his scientific studies: he rejected mathematics. Although he could pursue his biological studies without mathematics, his access to physics, more than he ever realized, was effectively blocked by his unwillingness to accept mathematical reasoning. Rudolf Steiner, in his edition of Goethe's Naturwissenschaftliche Schñften (1883-1897), maintained that Goethe was right to deny the charge that he had been "ein Widersacher, ein Feind der Mathematik": he had merely insisted that the qualitative must precede the quantitative study of nature. The fact remains, however, that Goethe persistently neglected the quantitative. In his "Über Mathematik und deren Mißbrauch" (1826), he argued "daß gewisse einzelne Fächer von Zeit zu Zeit ein Ubergewicht in der Wissenschaft nehmen," and that his own age had witnessed a "Vorliebe für die Anwendung von Formeln" prevail to the point that it had become the end rather than the means; the reliance on algebra, geometry, and the calculus not only rendered the report of scientific research beyond the comprehension of the intelligent layman, it resulted in mathematical demonstration usurping the place of natural observation and experiment. Goethe presented the "Didaktischer Theil" of his Farbenlehre as a counter-measure to the mathematical and mechanistic approach to optics. In the "Historischer Theil" he traced the course of the usurpation. And in the "Polemischer Theil" he enacted his "Damnation of N e w t o n " by repeating the experiments of the Opticks. In my study of Goethe's color theory I have turned frequently to the commentaries by Rupprecht Matthaei. Although I cite the Weimar edition (1887-1919) of Goethe's works, I have consulted the H a m b u r g edition (5th ed., 1966) for the notes and commentary provided by C . F . von Weizsäcker and Dorothea Kuhn. For her attention to my account of the physiology and the psychology of seeing, and especially for her gently sceptical queries about my demonstration of Edwin Land's two-color projection phenomena, I am grateful to Dorothea Kuhn, who heard preliminary versions of the first three chapters. In these chapters, I describe how

6

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Goethe's conception of the "Newtonian tyranny" informed the structure and the argument of the Farbenlehre, why he refused to recognize the physiological basis of his theory, and what use he made of the Farbenlehre in writing Faust. I then turn to Novalis and Achim von Armin, to Wordsworth, Coleridge, and Shelley, to explore further the concern with Newton's Opticks and the problem of perception. Like Goethe, these were poets attentive to the scientific developments of their day, and concerned about the widening rift between the arts and science. The notebooks he kept during his studies at Freiberg, and later, reveal that Novalis had a keen and wide-ranging knowledge of science. I found a useful approach to the relationship between Novalis' scientific studies and his literary endeavor in John Neubauer's Bifocal Vision, Novalis' Philosophy of Nature and Disease (1971). In spite of a possible metaphorical implication of the title, Bifocal Vision does not address the problems of optics or perception. Nor does it look into Novalis' Heinrich von Ofterdingen. Fortunately, the work of Walter Wetzels was helpful to me on both counts: his Johann Wilhelm Ritter: Physik im Wirkungsfeld der deutschen Romantik (1973) guided me in defining the scientific context at large and Ritter's influence in particular; his "Klingsohrs Märchen als Science Fiction" (1973) impressed me as being so valid in its analysis that I felt it deserved more thorough application. Although Walter Wetzels has heard me present much of the material in my first two chapters, this chapter on Novalis will be something of a surprise to him. My introduction to Achim von Arnim I owe to Roswitha Burwick. Her compilation, "Exzerpte Achim von Arnims zu unveröffentlichten Briefen" (1978), made me aware of Arnim's on-going interest in science. Through her skill in transcribing Arnim's handwriting, I have been able to draw from the large collection of unpublished manuscripts which date from the period of Arnim's research in electricity, magnetism, and physiological response. To Dr. Karl-Heinz Hahn, Director of the Goethe-Schiller-Archiv, Weimar, I owe my thanks for his permission to use the manuscripts of Arnim's "Studien zur Naturwissenschaft" (GSA 213). The chapter on Wordsworth has undergone a series of transformations. When I participated in a program on Wordsworth with Geoffrey Durrant, we soon recognized that we radically differed in our understanding of what Wordsworth meant when he declared that the poet "will be ready to follow the steps of the Man of science." In its early form, this chapter was intended primarily as an answer to Durrant's Wordsworth and the Great System (1970). Thomas MacFarland generously praised and encouraged my effort, but persuaded me that I should

Prelude in the Academy

7

not ignore The Recluse. If I have been able (indeed, even if I have not) to explain something more about the problems that confronted Wordsworth in trying to write The Recluse, I must acknowledge a debt to Thomas MacFarland and to his Romanticism and the Forms of Ruin (1981). For his chapter on "Coleridge's Doctrine of Polarity and Its European Contexts," and for our discussions on Schelling, I could have added many footnotes to other chapters. In his critique of the early draft of the chapter on Coleridge and Jean Paul, Ernst Behler complained that I had confused science and pseudoscience. Without realizing it, he had identified a problem not simply in this chapter, but in the entire book. His criticism prompted a thorough re-writing, which has probably helped more elsewhere than here. Trevore Levere's Poetry Realized in Nature, Samuel Taylor Coleridge and Early Nineteenth-Century Sciences (1981) has been indispensable. Both this chapter and the next concern the problem of perception with particular attention to the appropriation of metaphor. The metaphorical language of Jean Paul, even more than of Coleridge, tends to be an alchemist's brew concocted with many pseudo-scientific potions but with enough distilled from science to make the mixture volatile. I have tried to be alert to both. The particular task of exploring Jean Paul was to document the complex intertextuality of Coleridge's notebook poems, "Limbo" and "Ne Plus Ultra." For the analysis of animal magnetism in Schlegel, I am thoroughly indebted to Ursula Behler's edition of the Tagebuch, Uber die magnetische Behandlung der Gräfin Lesniowska, 1820-1826 (1979). Until the subsequent volumes of George Whalley's edition of Coleridge's Marginalia (Collected Works, 12; 1980) are available, transcriptions will probably continue to circulate like pirated video-tapes. For Coleridge's annotations to Kluge and Wolfart, however, I have consulted, firsthand, the volumes in the British Museum. Carl Grabo, in A Newton Among Poets, Shelley's Use of Science in Prometheus Unbound (1930), did not present, in spite of the title, Shelley as a devoted adherent to the Newtonian tradition, for he draws evidence from both the undular and corpuscular theories without acknowledging any source of controversy. In citing Thomas Young's Bakerian lecture on interference, for example, Grabo merely observed: "Professor Young collects various passages from Newton's writings that relate to the luminiferous ether." Grabo gathered a valuable compendium of scientific allusion in Shelley's work, but he did not document the current debate on light and color. In this closing chapter, I supplement Grabo's work and also explain why Shelley claimed there were "traces" of Faust in his Adonais.

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In Newton Demands the Muse: Newton's Opticks and the EighteenthCentury Poets (1946), Marjorie Hope Nicholson concluded that with the close of the eighteenth century there was an end to the intimacy between science and art. As presage of the Romantic denunciation of science, she cited the poetry of William Blake. His aggressive anti-Newtonianism she finds, among other examples, in his annotation to the Laocoon: "Art is the Tree of Life. Science is the Tree of Death." In Nicholson's judgment, "William Blake presided at the poetic damnation of Sir Isaac Newton." Blake's opposition to "Newton's sleep," however, cannot be aggrandized into a Romantic rejection of science. Blake, after all, had great company, scientists and poets alike, in the growing anti-Newtonian controversy. For Blake, and for most of the Romantics, the foe was materialism not scientific inquiry. Blake, it should be remembered, praised the wedding of art and science; the curse was in "Generalizing art and science till art & science is lost." "What is the Life of Man, but Art & Science?" he asks in the last book of Jerusalem (1804-1820). "Answer this to yourselves, & expel from among you those who pretend to despise the labours of Art & Science." Not science, but science divorced from art, from the "Mental Gifts" of intellect, is what Blake opposed. Donald Ault, in Visionary Physics, Blake's Response to Newton (1974), made this case very well. His book, however, is more useful to students of Blake than to those interested in discovering literary dimensions in the history of science. The problem is that Blake, in spite of his technical skill as engraver in manipulating startling visual effects, understood very little of the science of optics and apparently was not even aware of the exciting discoveries that were taking place during the first years of the nineteenth century - infra-red, ultra-violet, and the interference of light. If there was a poet of the age who "presided at the poetic damnation of Sir Isaac Newton," that poet was Goethe. For Goethe, as for many of the Romantics, Newton came to be seen as nemesis rather than apotheosis of man's perceptive capacity. After the century of Newtonian authority drew to a close, the support for a wave-theory of light, such as had been argued by Christian Huygens (1678) and Leonhard Euler (1746), began to win adherents who brought forth persuasive new evidence against the Newtonian theory of light as the rectilinear emission of corpuscles. At the same time, the experiments with electricity and magnetism brought about awareness of profound sources of energy pervading the world of matter and influencing, perhaps even animating as life-principle, the responses of living creatures. Here was an arena of inquiry that provoked the excitement of the poets and brought about large changes in the aesthetics and poetics of perception.

I. Goethe's Farbenlehre: The Newtonian Controversy The reception of Goethe's Farbenlehre, from the time of its first publication in 1810 down to the present, has been more influenced by his attack against Newton's Opticks (1704) than by any other factor in Goethe's exposition of his theory.1 For this reason, commentary on the Farbenlehre has remained preoccupied with accounts, pro and con, of Goethe's presentation of Newton. Where this task has been undertaken by those sympathetic to Goethe's intellectual integrity, the appraisal has been embarrassed or defensive. The physicists have accused him of dilettante speculation. Literary critics and art historians, for the most part, have chosen to ignore his concern with visual process and to deal only with his ideas on "Sinnlich-sittliche Wirkung" and "Ästhetische Wirkung." 2 The apology for Goethe's errors, following Hermann von Helmholtz, has been sought in the inadequacies of his technical apparatus.3 The Farbenlehre, as defended by Rudolf Steiner, represents Goethe's effort to explain sensory perception as the link between subjective quality and objective quantity; thus it provides a scientific epistemology bridging the Kantian abyss between phenomena and 1

2

3

Manfred Richter, "Das Schrifttum über Goethes Farbenlehre" (diss., Dresden, 1936), in which the author attends to 458 publications, pro and con, on the color theory; G.Schmid, Goethe und die Naturwissenschaft. Eine Bibliographie (Halle, 1940); C. Gögelein, Zu Goethes Begriff von Wissenschaft auf dem Wege seiner Farbstudien (Munich: Hanser Verlag, 1972), includes a useful working bibliography. Although John Gage, in Goethe on Art (Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press, 1980) exhibits both as translator and commentator a thorough command of Goethe's critical and aesthetic principles, his analysis of Goethe's Theory of Colours (Charles Eastlake's translation) in Color in Turner (New York: Praeger, 1969), apparently because he finds Turner's response thus constrained, neglects the account of visual processes, physical and physiological, and limits his discussion to the affective aspects. A similar limitation may be noted in Peter Schmidt, Goethes Farbensymbolik, Untersuchungen zur Verwendung und Bedeutung der Farben in den Dichtungen und Schriften Goethes (Berlin: Erich Schmidt Verlag, 1965); Schmidt declares that he does not intend a comprehensive study of the Farbenlehre but only of its literary relevance to Goethe's color symbolism. Hermann von Helmholtz, Zwei Vorträge über Goethe, ed. Walter König (Braunschweig, 1917); "Goethes naturwissenschaftliche Arbeiten" (1853), "Goethes Vorahnungen kommender naturwissenschaftlicher Ideen" (1892). The apology is in the latter lecture.

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The Newtonian Controversy

noumena.4 Goethe's scientific redemption, as argued by Werner Heisenberg, must be derived from the differences between Newton's physical and Goethe's physiological premises.5 Both the physiological and the epistemological approaches are useful in explaining the "Taten und Leiden" in Goethe's account of color perception. In order to explain his anti-Newtonian polemics, however, it is necessary to examine, as well, his argument on the strategic role of perception in both science and aesthetics. Because his study of color theory extended over many years of his career, it is convenient to consider the chronology in terms of the specific problems which dominated his attention. Rupprecht Matthaei has grouped the work on color theory into four periods,6 which I endorse, even though I have chosen to modify his divisions: the first period, 1791-1795, during which he produced the Beiträge zur Optik, (1791-1792); the second period, 1795-1810, during which he prepared his comprehensive Farbenlehre; the third period, 1810-1820, during which he conducted his experiments on entoptic phenomena; the fourth period, 1820-1832, during which he reviewed the work of Purkinje, elaborated the presentation of the physiological colors, and reorganized his supplementary studies as "Chromatik" rather than "Optik." I shall review the first two periods here and deal with the latter periods in the next chapter. The first period, 1791-95, commenced with that experiment with the prism which he recollected in his "Confession des Verfassers" (1810). While traveling in Italy, 1786-1788, he had visited galleries and studios to look at the paintings, talk with the artists, and learn their techniques, "ihre tausendfältige Anwendungen und Ramifikationen." He found that one matter always eluded him: "es war das Kolorit." When it came to coloring, "so schien alles dem Zufall überlassen zu sein." He recalled his study of physics at the University of Leipzig under Professor J. H. Winkler, yet could not remember "die Experimente, wodurch die Newtonische Theorie bewiesen werden soll." He decided, therefore, to conduct such experiments for himself. He borrowed a prism from C. W. 4

5

6

Rudolf Steiner, Goethes naturwissenschaftliche Schriften (Dornach: Rudolf Steiner Verlag, 1975, 3rd ed.). This edition, a reprint of the original edition in "Kürschners Deutsche National-Literatur" (1883-1897), also includes Steiner's subsequent notes and commentaries. Werner Heisenberg "Die Goethische und Newtonische Farbenlehre im Lichte der modernen Physik," Geist der Zeit (1941) X I X ; reprinted in Wandlungen in den Grundlagen der Naturwissenschaft (Stuttgart 1959; 9th ed.), 85-106. Rupprecht Matthaei, Goethes Farbenlehre, (Ravensburg: Otto Maier Verlag, 1971), pp. 205-206.

Goethe's Farbenlehre: The Newtonian Controversy

11

Büttner. H e prepared a room as a camera obscura, covering the one window with a sheet of metal which would allow sunlight to enter through a small hole of the prescribed dimensions. Before he could pursue the experiments, however, he moved. Then, too, Büttner wanted his prism back. In haste to complete the experiments, Goethe settled on a freshly painted room, with a wide-open window, in his new quarters. He took the prism and stared through it at the white walls and saw - the white walls, no colorful spectrum: Aber wie verwundert war ich, als die durch's Prisma angeschaute weiße Wand nach wie vor weiß blieb, daß nur da, wo ein Dunkles dran stieß, sich eine mehr oder weniger entschiedene Farbe zeigte, daß zuletzt die Fensterstäbe am allerlebhaftesten farbig erschienen, indessen am lichtgrauen Himmel draußen keine Spur von Färbung zu sehen war. Es bedurfte keiner langen Überlegung, so erkannte ich, daß eine Gränze notwendig sei, um Farben hervorzubringen, und ich sprach wie durch einen Instinkt sogleich vor mich laut aus, daß die Newtonische Lehre falsch sei.7

Of course what Goethe observed depended on conditions very different from those Newton had set forth in the Opticks. Goethe might not have realized the difference when he first performed the experiment early in 1791; in recollecting the event in 1810, however, he certainly was fully conscious of how radically his method departed from Newton's. When Newton first performed his experiment in 1666, he not only used the darkened chamber, he also placed the prism before the small hole which let in the light - not before his eyes. Newton's experiment was objective: he observed the beam of sunlight enter the prism and divide into rays that cast a colorful spectrum on the opposite wall; he deduced that the homogeneous light contained quantities of "diverse refrangibility" which produced an array from red, the least bent, through yellow, green, blue, to violet, the most bent. Goethe's experiment was subjective: with the prism before his eyes the light that was blocked by the narrow bar in the window appeared to radiate in bands of violet and blue on one side, red and yellow on the other side; he deduced that color arose on the surface or boundary because of the interaction or tension between light and darkness. It was not immediately evident to him that this interaction or tension might be a matter of retinal response, or that he was dealing with colors as qualities not quantities. Rather, he was convinced that he had discovered the fault of Newton's method: "Wenn sich dort das Licht in so vielerlei Farben auflös't, sagte ich zu mir selbst, so müßte ja hier auch die Finsterniß als in Farben aufgelös't angesehen

7

Goethes Werke (Weimar: Hermann Böhlau, 1887-1919), II. Abtheilung: Naturwissenschaftliche Schriften, Bd. 4, 295-296. References to this edition will be abbreviated WA in subsequent notes.

12

Goethe's Farbenlehre:

The Newtonian Controversy

werden."8 If Newton had not closed himself in a dark room and relied on such a small source of light, he would have been able to see the "Wechselwirkung" between light and darkness. With this conviction, Goethe published his Beiträge zur Optik, complete with a set of twentyseven cards to be viewed through a prism so that readers might repeat the experiments and confirm for themselves the validity of Goethe's account. In Beiträge I, he reiterated the root premise that informed Die Metamorphose der Pflanzen (1790): an Urphänomen is immanent in all process and change (§§5, 9). He described the appearance of the six elementary colors from the "Gesetz der farbigen Ränder" (§§ 8, 59), and posited the principle of polarity (§§ 50, 55). In Beiträge, II, he described how gray and colored surfaces appear to the eye through a prism. He also explained his use of the word "Strahlungen." Goethe's "Strahlungen" are subjective phenomena, not to be confused with Newton's "rays." Although in the first definition of the Opticks Newton stated that "By the Rays of Light I understand its least Parts, and those as well as Successive in the same Lines, as Contemporary in several Lines," it is not easy to determine whether he meant to identify the "ray" with the emission of a corpuscular mass, the "least Parts," whose size determine refrangibility, or with the "Lines" of their trajectory and their angles of refrangibility. The reference to "Parts" seems to relate "rays" to matter, while "Lines" would indicate their motion and direction. The rest of the definition stresses that the "ray" is something which can be materially isolated: "the least light or part of light, which may be stopped alone without the rest of the light, or propagated alone, or do or suffer any thing alone, which the rest of the light doth not or suffers not."' Goethe defined "Strahlungen" as the extension of the prismatic image: the colors which emerge along the black-and-white border, when viewed through the prism, may appear in sharply defined narrow bands at close range, but if viewed at an angle or at a distance the bands become broad and diffuse. Goethe's "Strahlungen" refer neither to the matter nor the motion of propagation, but only to the invisible phenomena. During this early period, Goethe's analysis of color was limited to his experiments with the prism. While assembling material for a third volume of the Beiträge, he began to deal with visual phenomena, "die farbigen Schatten," which he could not readily bring into accord with his WA, II, Bd. 4, 297. ' Newton, Opticks: Or, a Treatise on the Reflections. Refractions, Inflections and Colours of Light (London: 1730, 4th ed.; reprinted by E.T. Whittaker, New York: G.Bell & Sons, 1931), Book I, Part I, Definition I, pp. 1-2. 8

Goethe's Farbenlehre:

The Newtonian Controversy

13

previous interpretation. He consulted G. C. Lichtenberg, physics professor in Göttingen, who replied that the phenomena must be related to what Buffon had described in Sur les coleurs accidentelles (1743). Wrote Lichtenberg: "Es ist ζ. Β. gewiß, daß wenn man lange durch ein rotes Glas sieht und zieht es plötzlich vor den Augen weg, so erscheinen die Gegenstände einen Augenblick grünlich."10 Further work on the Beiträge ceased and the essay "Von den Farbigen Schatten" (1793) was put aside. Goethe turned his effort to the study of after-images and other physiological responses. His letter to S. T. Sömmering, anatomy professor in Kassel, reveals the shift in his research: "Es ist weit mehr Physiologisches bei den Farbenerscheinungen, als man denkt," nur ist hier die Schwierigkeit noch größer als in andern Fällen, das Objektive vom Subjektiven zu unterscheiden" (Jan./Feb., 1794).11 The second period (1795-1810) is marked by Goethe's concerted effort to prepare a comprehensive Farbenlehre. Returning to the problem that had provoked his earlier experiments with the prism, he began once more to study the optical effects attained by the artist's use of color: his introduction to the Propyläen (1798) and his review of "Diderots Versuch über die Malerei" (1791) were both directed toward that task later augmented by Heinrich Meyer's contributions, "Hypothetische Geschichte des Colorits" and "Geschichte des Colorits seit Wiederherstellung der Kunst," to the "Historischer Theil" of the Farbenlehre.12 Goethe had confidence in the artist's gifted ability to observe and recreate the subtlest nuances in the perception of color. Unfortunately, the artist had neither a practical handbook nor even a theory which would explain the illusions of light and shadow in painting." In the meantime, Goethe had also learned to his frustration that his Beiträge had failed to convert a single physicist from the Newtonian doctrine. Worse, it had stirred ridicule of his want of mathematics in attempting to account for phenomena of reflection and refraction. Such opposition prompted Goethe's polemical stance against Newtonian authority. He drafted a "Schema zur Geschichte der Farbenlehre" (10 Feb. 1799) in which he intended to reveal how the classical idea of color perception had been subverted by mathematical optics. As he now conceived it, a comprehensive theory must account for both the subjec-

Quoted in Matthaei, Goethes Farbenlehre, p. 37. Quoted in Matthaei, Goethes Farbenlehre, p. 38. 12 WA, II, Bd. 3, 68-107 and 353-381. See: Paul Weizsäcker, ed., Kleine Schriften zur Kunst von Heinrich Meyer (Heilbronn: Verlag Henninger, 1886), pp. xx-xlix; Wolfgang Pfeiffer-Belli, Goethes Kunstmeyer und seine Welt (Zurich: Artemis-Verlag, 1959). » WA, II, Bd. 4, 288-292. 10 11

14

Goethe's Farbenlehre:

The Newtonian Controversy

tive and objective phenomena in a manner which would resolve the disparities between the physiological and physical disciplines. Early in 1801, he visited with J . F. Blumenbach, professor of physiology in Göttingen. 14 During this time, too, Johann Ritter conducted with him a series of experiments on the effects of the prismatic spectrum on a plate coated with silver salts, and on the red and blue colors stimulated in the eye when touched by the positive and negative electrodes from the voltaic battery.15 With Ritter, he studied William Herschel's discrimination of the "colorific" and "calorific" properties of light, which he appropriated as additional physical evidence of the predominance of light over darkness or darkness over light in the "farbige Strahlungen."16 By summer, the "Schema der Farbenlehre" (2 Aug. 1801) was complete: although he would subsequently alter some of his terminology, he now recognized the advantage of the division into physiological, physical, and chemical colors. Five years later, he had repeated, with his own corrective variants, the experiments in Newton's Opticks and had outlined a history of color theory. His "Schema der ganzen Farbenlehre" (18 March 1806) presented the plan for his three-part work: the didactic (completed Feb. 1807), the polemic (completed Nov. 1808), and the history (completed Dec. 1809). In his first definition, Newton wrote that the "part of Light, which may be stopped alone..., or propagated alone, or do or suffer any thing alone, . . . I call a Ray of Light." For Goethe, light could neither be stopped nor isolated. When he repeated Newton's fifth experiment with the crossed prisms, he observed that Newton persisted in making this mistake, "daß er nämlich das prismatische Bild als ein fertiges, unveränderliches ansieht, da es doch eigentlich immer nur ein werdendes und immer abänderliches bleibt" (Polemik, §10). It was Newton's delusion that light could "do or suffer anything alone": the doing and suffering must always be observed in terms of opposition, duality, polarity. Color is indeed the consequence of light doing and suffering, as Goethe readily affirmed in the preface to the "Didaktischer Theil": „Die Farben sind Taten des Lichts, Taten und Leiden." Yet he added immediately that the relation of light and color always depended upon a tension, a resistance: Götz von Seile, Universität Göttingen, 'Wesen und Geschichte (Göttingen: MusterSchmidt, 1953), pp. 68-69. 15 "Galvanische Versuche bezüglich auf Phisiologische Farben, " W A , II, Bd. 52, 201-202; Tagebuch (23 Feb. to 3 April 1801), WA, III, Bd. 3, 7-11. " An Johann Wilhelm Ritter (7 March 1801), WA, IV, Bd. 15, 189-193; "Schreiben des Geh. Rath von Göthe an J . W . Ritter, Herschel's thermometrische Versuche in den Farben des Lichts betreffend; mit Anmerkungen von J . W . Ritter," in Gehlen's Journal für die Chemie, Physik und Mineralogie, VI (1808), 719-728. 14

Goethe's Farbenlehre: The Newtonian Controversy

15

"ein Mehr und Weniger, ein Wirken, ein Widerstreben, ein Tun, ein Leiden." Color may be "Taten des Lichts," but the action becomes visible only when light is pitted against darkness, when its energy works upon matter. Visibility, of course, requires the beholding eye, but the eye itself is matter. The morphological idea prompted Goethe to consider the eye as a simple organic sensitivity to light which has gradually developed in some animals into more refined capacities of physiological response. In his fragmentary essay, "Das Auge" (1805/1806), he described the morphological evolution: Das Auge ist das letzte, höchste Resultat des Lichtes auf den organischen Körper. Das Auge als ein Geschöpf des Lichtes leistet alles, was das Licht selbst leisten kann. Das Licht überliefert das Sichtbare dem Auge; das Auge überliefert's dem ganzen Menschen. 17

N o t surprisingly, then, he began his theory with the "Physiologische Farben," asserting at the very outset, "Das Auge hat sein Dasein dem Licht zu danken." The eye is the organic consummation of the morphological process stimulated by light: "Aus gleichgültigen tierischen Hülfsorganen ruft sich das Licht ein Organ hervor, das seinesgleichen werde; und so bildet sich das Auge am Lichte fürs Licht, damit das innere Licht dem äußeren entgegentrete." 18 Among the physiological colors Goethe distinguished the positive after-images, in which positive silhouette images are stimulated by bright light, and the negative after-images, in which intense colors are excited by staring at their contraries. Although Goethe referred simply to "fordernde" and "geforderte Farben," he accurately described successive contrast (§§48-55; 805-810), successive double contrast (§58), sustained and mixed contrast (§ 30), simultaneous contrast with grey on colored ground (§§56, 57; 690), simultaneous contrast with contrasting colors (§§57-61; 690; 805)." He then introduced the phenomena of "farbige Schatten" which he had been unable to assimilate into the Beiträge. H e now accounted for the phenomena as "gefordert" in the same manner of retinal response as simultaneous contrast. He also provided an efficient experiment for producing colored shadows: two 17 WA, II, Bd. 52, 11-12. " WA, II, Bd. 1, xxxi. See: Armin Tschermak-Seysenegg, "Goethes Farbenlehre und ihre Bedeutung für die physiologische Optik der Gegenwart," Forschungen und Fortschritte, VIII (1930); Rupprecht Matthaei, "Goethes biologische Farbenlehre," Jahrbuch der Goethe-Gesellschaft, I (n. s., 1936); Agnes Arber, Sehen und Denken in der biologischen Forschung (Hamburg, 1960). " Johannes Pawlik, Goethes Farbenlehre, Textauswahl mit einer Einführung und neuen Farbtafeln (Cologne: DuMont, 1978).

16

Goethe's Farbenlehre:

The Newtonian Controversy

candles (A and B) on each side of a white tabletop, a pane of colored glass ("fordernde Farbe") placed before one (A), a thin rod held between the two so that two shadows are cast: the shadow cast by candle (A) will have the "geforderte Farbe" and the shadow cast by candle (B) will have the "fordernde Farbe." With a red glass, for example, the candle will cast a green shadow. This experiment has been cited in recent years to explain Edwin Land's stunning demonstration of a colored photographic image cast by projecting two black-and-white slides and placing a color-filter ("fordernde Farbe") on the lens of one of the projectors. 20 Goethe also treated halos (around a candle flame, for example) as "subjektive Höfe" elicited by retinal response. He ought to have listed them, instead, among the diffraction patterns he discusses as the subjective-objective "Physische Farben." By "Physische Farbe," Goethe meant those fugitive colors produced by the process of mediation. He gave them names which were not unusual in the literature of his day: dioptric 1 (§§143-177, dispersion: milk-glass looks red when held before the light, blue when held away from the light), dioptric 2 (§§178-365, refraction: the red-yellow and violet-blue bands which appear on each side of a black bar on a white background when viewed through a prism), katoptric (§§366-388, reflection: a silver plate held toward the sun will mirror bright light but no color; scratch the plate and an intense line of color will appear in the scratch and change as the angle of the plate is shifted), paroptic (§§389-428, diffraction: a thin wire held directly before the eye while looking at a candle flame will cause several bands of colors to appear at 20

Edwin Land, "Experiments in Color Vision," Scientific American (May, 1959), 84—99; Francis Bello, "An Astonishing New Theory of Color," Fortune (May, 1959), 144—48, 195-196, 200, 202, 205; "Die schlafende Schönheit," Der Spiegel (August, 1959) 57-60. See also: Edwin Land, "Color Vision and the Natural Image," Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, X L V , no. 1 (January, 1959), 115-129, and X L V , no. 4 (April, 1959), 636-644; M . H . Wilson and R . W . Brocklebank, "Two-color Projection Phenomena," Journal of Photographic Science, VIII (1960), 141 ff.; D . B . Judd, "Appraisal of Land's Work on Two primary Colour Projections, "Journal of the Optical Society of America, L., no. 2 (February, 1960), 254 ff; John McCann and Jeanne Benton, "Interaction of the Long-Wave Cones and the Rods to Produce Color Sensations," Journal of the Optical Society of America, LIX, no. 1 (January, 1969), 103-107; Edwin Land and John McCann, "Lightness and Retinex Theory," Journal of the Optical Society of America, LXI, no. 1 (January, 1971), 1-11; Edwin Land, "The Retinex Theory of Color Vision," Scientific American (December, 1977), 108-130. On the relevance to Goethe: Heinrich Proskauer, 150 Jahre Goethes Farbenlehre und die Fruchtbarkeit ihrer Prinzipien zum Verständnis neuentdeckter Farbphänomene (Dornach : Goethe-Farbenstudio, 1960) ; Gerhard Ott, „Die Versuche von Land. Ansätze zu ihrer goetheanistischen Deutung," in Goethes Farbenlehre, ed. H. Proskauer and G. Ott (Dornach: Verlag Freies Geistesleben, 1980), I, 283-289.

Goethe's Farbenlehre:

The Newtonian Controversy

17

distances from both sides of the flame; concentric circles of color will appear inside of a small hole in a card held before the eye while looking toward the light), epoptic (§§429-485, interference: oil on water, soap bubbles, mica schist, etc.; the colors in thin glass plates change under pressure). To these "Physische Farben" Goethe later added the entoptic phenomena (polarization), which I describe in the next chapter. The "Chemische Farben" are classed as objective because their color derives from the material substance or ground, but even these colors may vary with the varying light: the blue of distant mountains, for example, or the whiteness of sand along the seashore at mid-day that appears brown or gray towards sunset. Here Goethe also referred to mixing pigments, heating and cooling metals, and to the chemical alteration of color: bleaching, fading, tarnishing, rusting. He concludes with a survey of the colors of plants (greening of leaves, ripening of fruit) and animals (the irridescence of an insect, the shimmer of a bird feather, etc.).21 By emphasizing the many factors which may change the "Chemische Farben" (§§494-612, "Ableitung," "Erregung," "Steigerung," "Kulmination," "Balancierung," "Umkehrung," "Mischung," "Mitteilung," "Entziehung"), he made it clear that the appearance even of the objective phenomena undergoes constant alteration and may be affected by a subtle shift of the light or movement of the eye. Even though the eye learns to perceive the constancy of color, it is also alert to the slightest variation. In his exposition of these three categories of colors, physiological, physical, and chemical, Goethe formulated three laws: the law of polarity, the law of gradation, and the law of totality. After calling attention to their operation in the first three sections, he summed them up in the fourth ("Allgemeine Ansichten nach Innen," §§688-715). Since Newton had acknowledged and interpreted all of the phenomena Goethe described as "Physische Farben," 22 the problems motivating the 21

22

Newton, Opticks, Book II, Part III, Proposition V: "The transparent parts of B o d i e s . . . reflect Rays of one Colour, and transmit those of another, on the same ground that thin Plates or Bubbles do reflect or transmit those Rays." Cf. Henrik Steffens, "Über die Bedeutung der Farbe in der Natur," in P . O . Runge, Farbenkugel (Hamburg, 1810), and F.S. Voigt, Die Farben der organischen Körper (Jena, 1816). Newton acknowledged three modes of propagation: reflection, refraction, and inflections; Opticks, Book I, Part I, analyzes the phenomena of reflection and refraction which Goethe labelled dioptric 2 and katoptric; Book I, Part II, experiments 4 and 12 deal with epoptic and paroptic phenomena; the epoptic are further examined in Book II, Part I ("Colors of thin transparent bodies"), the katoptric in Book II, Part IV ("the reflexions and colours of thick transparent polished plates"), and the paroptic in Book III, Part I ("the inflexions of the rays of light and the colours made thereby"). For a comparative study of the Opticks and Farbenlehre, see: Maurice Martin, Die Kontroverse um die Farbenlehre (Schaffhausen: Novalis Verlag, 1979).

18

Goethe's Farbenlehre:

The Newtonian Controversy

Newtonian polemic obviously reside in Goethe's interpretation of their subjective-objective "Vermittlung." Goethe was concerned with mediation of perception, not with the propagation of light.23 In recounting the three experiments reported by Newton in his letter to Henry Oldenburg, Royal Society (6 Feb. 1671 o. s.), Goethe complained that they were "höchst abgeleitet," obscuring rather than revealing the Urphänomen.24 He repeated this distinction in his indictment of all scientific research when it becomes distracted into pursuing "ein abgeleitetes Phänomen" instead of "das Urphänomen" (Didaktik, § 176). Later he would identify the Urphänomen as coexistent with the Phänomen in the entoptic figure. In his discussion of dioptrics, however, the Urphänomen is said to reside in a shaded medium which he called "das trübe Mittel": Ein solches Urphänomen ist dasjenige, das wir bisher dargestellt haben. Wir sehen auf der einen Seite das Licht, das Helle, auf der andern die Finsterniß, das Dunkle, wir bringen die Trübe zwischen beide, und aus diesen Gegensätzen, mit Hülfe gedachter Vermittlung, entwickeln sich, gleichfalls in einem Gegensatz, die Farben, deuten aber alsbald, durch einen Wechselbezug, unmittelbar auf ein Gemeinsames wieder zurück (Didaktik, § 175). 25

Nowhere else does he manage to give an example of "trübes Mittel" as clear and precise as the example he draws in the dioptrics (§§238-241). Seen through the angle of a prism, a white square on a black background appears both as a primary and an overlapping secondary image ("Hauptund Nebenbild"). Where the two images overlap (at top and bottom if the prism is held horizontally), the "Nebenbild" seems to pull some of the top black border down into the white square of the "Hauptbild" and also to push its lower edge across the bottom black border. Where primary and secondary images of the white square overlap with each other there is no change in the whiteness; where they overlap with the black border they create that "trübes Mittel" in which the bands of color appear. At the top, the brighter primary image makes the black border lighter, creating the lighter red-yellow bands. At the bottom, within the darker secondary image, appear the darker blue-violet bands. Goethe derived the law of polarity from the opposition of light and darkness. The opposition and interaction of light and darkness generate a tension

23

24 25

In his critique of the "Physikalische Preisaufgabe der Petersburger Akademie der Wissenschaften" (1826), Goethe denied both the undular and the corpuscular theories of propagation; WA, II, Bd. 5, 427-436. „Historischer Theil," WA, II, Bd. 4, 47. WA, II, Bd. 1, 72-73; for further references to the Urphänomen, see: WA, II, Bd. 1, 287; Bd. 3, 236; Bd. 5, 348; Bd. 52, 70.

Goethe's Farbenlehre: The Newtonian Controversy

19

within the "trübes Mittel" which becomes visible as color. He recognized numerous attributes of the plus and minus activity of light and darkness: the red/yellow end of the spectrum participated more in the brightness, vitality, and warmth of light; the blue/violet end shared more of the shade, infirmity, and cold of darkness (§ 696). In his attempt to account for the qualities of brightness, hue, and saturation, Goethe formulated the law of gradation. This law follows from the law of polarity: the transition from yellow to red, or from blue to violet, is attributed to the degrees of tension in the polar opposition. The polarity of yellow and blue, under increased intensity, becomes the "gesteigerte Polarität" of red and violet. In the "Chemische Farben," Goethe provided a simple demonstration of intensity or augmentation in support of his law of gradation. A translucent white porcelain container, shaped in stair-steps, is filled with a yellow liquid; the top step is light yellow but the succeeding steps shade into orange approaching red. A second stair-step container is filled with a blue liquid; the steps are colored in gradations from light blue to violet (§§ 518—519).26 "Die Steigerung," he explained, "erscheint uns als eine In-sich-selbst-Drängung, Sättigung, Beschattung der Farben" (§517). In the "Physische Farben," the "Strahlungen" in the "trübes Mittel" exhibit degrees of intensity. In the "Physiologische Farben," the intensity of an afterimage is not only gauged by the factors inherent in the primary stimulus, but also by duration. The law of totality also follows the law of polarity, for it is exhibited in forces of complementation and reconciliation which accompany opposition and tension. Goethe drew evidence of this law most effectively from the "Physiologische Farben." The activity of the retinal response, in producing negative and positive after-images and in perceiving the "farbige Schatten," always exhibits the process of complementation. Goethe arranged the color-wheel with the complementary colors at opposite sides. The "fordernde" and "geforderte" colors reconcile the opposition and close the circle.27 "Das Auge verlangt dabei ganz eigentlich Totalität und schließt in sich den Farbenkreis ab" (§60). In the aesthetics of color response, the physiological urge toward complementation and totality gives rise to "die Lehre von der Harmonie der Farben" (§61). 26

27

Matthaei, Goethes Farbenlehre, p. 141, has excellent color photographs of a modified version of Goethe's demonstration (§§518-519). Goethe compared the "Totalität" of the "fordernde" and "geforderte" physiological colors to the colors stimulated in Ritter's galvanic experiments, WA, II, Bd. 52, 191, 201-202. Matthaei, "Complementare Farben. Zur Geschichte und Kritik eines Begriffes," Neue Hefte zur Morphologie, ¡V (1962).

20

Goethe's Farbenlehre:

The Newtonian Controversy

In conducting the experiments in Newton's Opticks, Goethe made use of these same laws, laws which derived from subjective response. As is evident in his account of the "trübes Mittel," Goethe readily accepted Newton's argument on the "refrangibility" of light and he would have been content with the formulation that colors are produced by "refrangible rays," if only Newton would have acknowledged the necessary "Taten und Leiden" (Polemik, §§20-21). What he objected to so vigorously in the Polemischer Tbeil was Newton's apparent equation of the colors with the "diversely refrangible rays" contained in white light. Because his title addressed the "Colours of Light," because he specifically referred to the "Colours of Homogeneal Lights," and declared that the "Heterogeneal and Compound Lights" are "always compounded of the colours of Homogeneal Lights" (Book I, Part I, Definition VIII), Goethe assumed that Newton was talking about color as perceptual quality. Indeed, even the word "Optik," Goethe insisted, "handelt ausschließlich von Farbe, von farbigen Erscheinungen" (Polemik, §9).28 Newton, of course, meant to refer only to the rays of light. In his "Polemischer Theil," Goethe did not annotate Books II and III of the Opticks; he did, however, provide a thorough commentary on Book I, for he was principally concerned with repudiating the notion that color was contained in light. In Proposition I, Newton stated: "Lights which differ in Colour, differ also in Degrees of Refrangibility." Goethe dismantled this statement literally word for word. The plural form of the first word was already a source of annoyance: "Lichter, mehrere Lichter! und was denn für Lichter?" Newton offered two experiments, subjective and objective, to support this proposition. Goethe objected: neither viewing the red and blue squares through a prism, nor projecting their images through a lens justified a claim to "Lights which differ in Colour" (§§25-81). Many pages later, Newton added the clarification: . . . if at any time I speak of Light and Rays as coloured or endued with Colours, I would be understood to speak not philosophically and properly, but grossly, and accordingly to such Conceptions as vulgar People in seeing all these Experiments would be apt to frame. For the Rays to speak properly are not coloured. In them there is nothing else than a certain Power and Disposition to stir up a Sensation of this or that Colour (Book I, Part II, Prop. II, Definition).

28

Goethe later claimed that the word "Optik" referred so exclusively to the mathematical discipline, that he would have been less misunderstood if he had named his Beiträge "Chromatik" rather than "Optik." He also recognized the physiological ground of his study: „Als ich zur Farbenlehre schritt, durfte ich mir nicht verläugnen, daß die Chromatik erst im Auge gegründet werden müsse," WA, II, Bd. 52, 388.

Goethe's Farbenlehre:

The Newtonian Controversy

21

Goethe was not appeased. In thus distinguishing the physical quantity and the sensory quality, Newton was not interested in granting physiological capacities to interpret and evaluate the stimulus. He was merely trying to work out a compromise between his own corpuscular theory of light and Christian Huygens' wave theory. He disassociated light-rays from the perception of color in order to introduce the analogy of sound-waves and declare that light, too, was "a trembling Motion," a "Motion propagated from the Object," and that only when perceived "in the Sensorium" were "those Motions under the Forms of Colours." Goethe equated the corpuscular theory with philosophical Atomism and the wave theory with Dynamism.29 He then accused Newton of a strategic ploy, "um jene theoretische Differenz aufzuheben und zu neutralisieren, das Atomistische der Newtonischen Vorstellungsart mit der dynamischen seiner Gegner zu amalgamieren, dergestalt, daß es wirklich aussehe, als sei zwischen beiden Lehren kein Unterschied" (§457). For others, the Newtonian controversy may have concerned the wave theory versus the corpuscular theory. For Goethe, it concerned not the propagation, but the perception of color. Even after Newton had prescinded the light-ray from color-sensation, he still attributed to the ray a "Power and Disposition to stir up a Sensation" which was mechanically determined, a matter of cause and effect. And Newton was absolutely certain of the effect: For all white, grey, red, yellow, green, blue, violet B o d i e s . . . in red homogeneal Light appeared totally red, in blue Light totally blue, in green Light totally green, and so of the other Colours. In the homogeneal Light of any Colour they all appeared totally of that same Colour, with this only Difference, that some of them reflected that Light more strongly, others more faintly. I never yet found any Body, which by reflecting homogeneal Light could sensibly change its Colour (Book I, Part II, Theorem II, Experiment 6).

Newton was wrong on both counts. The color constancy experiments of H. Helson, D. B. Judd, and V. B. Jeffers show that under chromatic "homogeneal Light," the eye is perfectly capable of adapting so that it can distinguish hue, lightness, and saturation; further, that the reflectance of an object does "sensibly change its Colour." Under Newton's "Rubrific or Red-making" rays, a gray paper on a white card will look blue-green, the same gray paper on a gray card will be recognized as

29

Η. A. M. Snelders, Atomismus und Dynamismus im Zeitalter der deutschen romantischen Naturphilosophie," in Romantik in Deutschland, ed. Richard Brinkmann (Stuttgart: Metzler, 1978); see also: Jakob Friedrich Fries, "Atomistik und Dynamistik" (1807), in Sämtliche Schriften (Darmstadt: Scientia Verlag Aalen, 1975), XVII, 221-257.

22

Goethe's Farbenlehre:

The Newtonian Controversy

colorless, and on a black card it will appear red.30 Goethe ridiculed Newton's experiment as "etwas völlig Unwahres": "Der Versuch ist so einfach und läßt sich so leicht anstellen, daß die Falschheit dieser Angabe einem jeden leicht vor die Augen gebracht werden kann" (§ 446). Goethe also noted that surface and texture influenced judgment, therefore he proposed to conduct the experiment more efficiently "mit schönen farbigen, glatt auf Pappe gezogenen Papieren" (§453). Newton explicitly denied that colors were caused by "new Modifications of the Light variously impress'd, according to the various Terminations of the Light and Shadow" (Book I, Part II, Prop. I, Theorem I). Since this was precisely what Goethe held to be true, he admitted that he had been especially curious how Newton would go about rendering "das Wahre unwahr" (§ 324). He blames Newton's procedures (the camera obscura, the small hole, and the extreme distances) for obscuring the phenomena. Goethe had already discredited Newton's Experimentum crucis (Book I, Part I, Prop. I, Experiment 6). Using a double camera obscura (with an opening in the back of the primary chamber to let the light pass into the secondary chamber), Newton arranged a prism in each chamber so that the second prism made the blue-violet band wider than the red-yellow band. Newton attributed the difference to "diverse refrangibility," evidence that the blue-violet rays had a sharper angle of refraction. Goethe answered that the distortion of the picture simply resulted from the angle of projection: "Hier ist also keine diverse Refrangibilität, es ist nur eine widerholte Refraktion, eine widerholte Verrückung, eine vermehrte Verlängerung, nichts mehr und nichts weniger" (§131). In his rebuttal to the Experimentum crucis, Goethe introduced cross-references to his subjective experiments (Didaktik, §§210, 324) in which he explained the circumstances influencing the extension or distortion of the "Farbenerscheinung." The cross-references are important, for Goethe used them to shift from Newton's objective experiments to his own evidence on the "Physiologische" and "Physische Farben." Goethe countered Newton's experiments with some experiments of his own which produced rather 30

H. Helson, "Fundamental problems in color vision I. The principle governing changes in hue, saturation, and lightness of non-selective samples in chromatic illumination," Journal of Experimental Psychology, X X I I I (1938), 4 3 9 ^ 7 6 ; Helson and V . B . Jeffers, "Fundamental problems in color vision II. Hue, brightness, and saturation of selective samples in chromatic illumination," Journal of Experimental Psychology X X V I (1940), 1 - 2 7 ; D . B . Judd, "Hue, saturation, and lightness of surface colors with chromatic illumination," Journal of the Optical Society of America, X X X (1940), 2-32. See also: Helson, Adaptation-level Theory (New York: Harper & Row, 1964); Jacob Beck, Surface Color Perception (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1972).

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23

astonishing evidence on the physiological response to color. In those experiments in which Newton required two prisms, or a prism and a lens, Goethe maintained that the images were always independent. By transforming the objective experiment into a subjective one, simply by placing his own eye at the point where Newton projected an image, Goethe always identified the "prismatisches Bild" as red-yellow and blue-violet "Strahlungen" separated by white light. Where Newton had shown that a lens could reconstitute the spectrum into white light, Goethe saw through the lens both "das Licht" and "die Farbenerscheinung," just as he saw them both through the first prism. Where Newton noted that if the first prism was set up so that only the yellow band passed through, then the second prism could neither break the yellow light further into colors nor could the lens reconstitute white light, Goethe again placed his eye before the projected image and again discovered both "das Licht," pure and white, and "die Farbenerscheinung" in full array. Only recent research has confirmed that the eye may see the full array of color within a narrow band of the visible spectrum.31 Relying on his own subjective experiment, Goethe never doubted that his eye would behold the colors. Nor did he believe in redmaking or yellow-making rays. Whereas Newton had mistaken the prismatic image as "ein fertiges, unveränderliches," he correctly saw it, with his own eyes, as "immer nur ein werdendes, und immer abänderliches" (§ 101). T o one of Goethe's repeated assertions of his essential doctrine of polarity and autonomous response, "die Sonne sei bei objektiven prismatischen Experimenten nur als ein leuchtendes Bild zu betrachten" (§241), Rudolf Steiner anchored a footnote that is perhaps too heavily restrictive. After complaining that modern physics ignores "wirkliche Tatsachen" in its preoccupation with "fingierte Objekte," Steiner goes on to segregate the phenomena of perception ("Die Sonne ist uns im Prozesse des Sehens nur als Bild gegeben") from its physical source and causal propagation: "Wenn uns dann die Forschung weiterführt und uns die handgreiflichen Ursachen dieses Bildes klarlegt, so dürfen wir nicht vergessen, daß jeder gedankliche Aufbau doch zuletzt auf die einfache Sinnesempfindung zurückgeht." He added that Goethe was concerned only with "Sinnesempfindung, nicht um eine Veranlassung, die mit dieser dem Wesen nach nichts gemein hat." Perhaps Steiner did not 31

R. M. Boynton, W. Schafer, and M. E. Neun, "Hue-wavelength relation measured by color-naming method for three retinal locations," Sríence, CXLVI (1964), 666-668; R . J . W . Mansfield, "Visual Adaptation: Retinal transduction, brightness and sensitivity," Vision Research, XVI (1976), 679-690.

24

Goethe's Farbenlehre:

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intend that his italicized emphasis should also separate the Empfindung from the Sinne and Sinnesphysiologie. Certainly it is separation enough to set "Empfindung" apart from the physical "Veranlassung" and, thus, effectively close the Farbenlehre within a hermeneutic circle: "Der Vorgang erstreckt sich also nur von einer Empfindung zur andern. Alles Hinausgehen aus diesem Kreise (als Lichtstrahlen, Lichtbündel etc.) ist ganz und gar den Tatsachen widersprechend."32 When Goethe defined color as "Taten und Leiden des Lichtes," and declared that light called forth the eye as "seinesgleichen," he obviously did not intend to separate "Empfindung" from "Veranlassung." He was, however, aware of the hermeneutic circle of his experimentation, yet he defined it in significantly different terms. He presented at the beginning of his "Polemischer Theil" the paradox, "daß sich durch Erfahrung und Versuch eigentlich nichts beweisen läßt." Whether or not Newton intended his dictum, "hypotheses non fingo," to apply to all scientific endeavor," the opinion widely prevailed that hypotheses and theories intruded upon scientific inquiry and tended to distort the observation and evaluation of experiment. Goethe charged Newton, in spite of the disclaimer, with imposing his hypothesis of "diverse refrangibility" to the point of begging the question in the very formulation of his experiments. In his opening statement on "Beweis durch Experimente," Goethe asserted that it was impossible to avoid hypothesizing. One could observe phenomena, set up careful experiments, and derive an order of predictability between experiment and observation; conclusions and proofs are nevertheless imposed: man kann einen gewissen Kreis des Wissens darstellen, man kann seine Anschauungen zur Gewißheit und Vollständigkeit erheben, und das, dächte ich, wäre schon genug. Folgerungen hingegen zieht jeder für sich daraus; beweisen läßt sich nichts dadurch. . . . Alles, was Meinungen über die Dinge sind, gehört dem Individuum a n . . . Im Wissen wie im Handeln entscheidet das Vorurtheil alles, und das Vorurtheil, wie sein N a m e wohl bezeichnet, ist ein Urtheil vor der Untersuchung (§ 30).

Goethe's paradox strategically assaulted prejudices of prevailing Newtonian authority, yet it implicated Goethe's own endeavor in prejudice as well. Such a science may be relative and limited, but it has autonomy and freedom. Contrary to Steiner's fine segregation of the "wirkliche Tatsachen" of sensation from the "fingierte Objekte" of science, for Goethe the "Kreis des Wissens" did indeed enclose mediation "im Prozesse des Sehens." The Newtonian system sought to explain light and color in 32 33

Steiner, Goethes naturwissenschaftliche Schriften, III, 4 1 7 ; note to § 2 4 1 . Maurice Mandelbaum, Philosophy, Science, and Sense Perception (Baltimore: The Johns Hopkins Press, 1964), pp. 6 1 - 1 1 7 .

Goethe's Farbenlehre:

The Newtonian Controversy

25

terms of mechanical laws that were not only oblivious to human sensation, but effectively denied that human response had any import in the physical event. Thus, for example, Newton could attribute such inevitable and invariable "Power" to a "Rubrific" ray. For Goethe, this was another instance of the invasion of mechanical philosophy upon the province of human being. The very sensations were defined as causally determined by external laws.34 Denied free will, consciousness was indeed trapped, in Gilbert Ryle's phrase, as a poor "ghost in the machine." 35 The Newtonian tyranny, then, was not simply a tyranny of the academy, it was a tyranny of the mind. Toward the end of the nineteenth century, Sir George Gabriel Stokes in his Lectures on Light (Aberdeen, 1883) recollected the suppression of scientific inquiry that attended the almost fanatical allegiance to Newtonian theory. Stokes had modest praise for Goethe's observations. More importantly, he offered a forthright caveat on the "lessons" to be learned from the "corpuscular" theory: It shows that we are not to expect to evolve the system of nature out of the depths of our inner consciousness, but to follow the painstaking inductive method of studying the phenomena presented to us, and be content to learn new laws and properties of natural objects. It shows that we are not to be disheartened by some preliminary difficulties from giving a patient hearing to a hypothesis of fair promise, assuming of course that those difficulties are not of the nature of contradictions between the results of observation or experiment, and conclusions certainly deducible from the hypothesis on trial. It shows that we are not to attach too great importance to great names, but to investigate in an unbiased manner the facts which lie open to our examination.36

Because of his own work in wave theory on double refraction and the dynamics of polarized light, Stokes could be expected to regard with favor Goethe's collaboration with Thomas Seebeck in the account of entoptic or polarized phenomena. I quote Stokes, however, not for his defense of Goethe, but for his returning to the Newtonians the very charge they had made against the early "heretics," namely that they had tried "to evolve the system of nature out of the depths o f . . . inner conscious" that their method was introspective rather than inductive. Johann Christian Poggendorff, whose work in thermo-electrics was,

34

35 36

Arthur Zajonc, "Goethe's Theory of Color and Scientific Intuition," American Journal of Physics, X L I V (1976), 327-333, raises the question whether it might "be possible to develop the capacity to 'perceive' a physical law," and thereby overcome the division between the physical object and the physiological/psychological response: "The very process of attentive perception transform the observer in harmony with the perception." Gilbert Ryle, The Concept of the Mind (New York: Barnes & Noble, 1949). Quoted in Thomas Preston, The Theory of Light, ed. Alfred Porter (London: Macmillan, 5th ed. 1928), p. 20.

26

Goethe's Farbenlehre:

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incidentally, also indebted to Thomas Seebeck, objected even more vehemently to the Newtonian tyranny. Poggendorff drew his historical perspective from his fifty years as editor of the Annalen der Physik und Chemie. On the repression of the wave theory he asserted "that there is no other instance in the history of modern physics in which the truth was so long kept down by authority."37 At the beginning of the century, however, there were few who dared to speak out against the Newtonian authority. For the anti-Newtonian argument of his Dissertation on the Universe (London, 1795), Richard Saumarez gained a reputation as a renegade from scientific orthodoxy which hazarded his position as surgeon at Magdalen Hospital. Not until he was secure in his private practice did Saumarez publish a full attack on the Newtonian system. In Principles of Physiological and Physical Science (1812), he argued the primacy of physiology and the human sensory system in determining and directing all possible questions in physics. Coleridge, long convinced that the Newtonian propositions on light were "monstrous FICTIONS!," was eager to meet this bold author, "who has just written a Book, a biggish one, to overthrow Sir Iky's System of Gravitation, Color, & the whole 39 Articles of the Hydrostatic, chemic, & Physiologic Churches" (17 July 1812).38 The attack included the "Physiologic Churches" because of Saumarez's criticism of the instruction at Cambridge and Oxford, and the reform that he also proposed in A New System of Physiology (1798).39 Saumarez was not alone in seeking to redress the want of physiological relevance in Newtonian physics. J . J . Engel, a "Popularphilosoph" dedicated to teaching the bourgeoisie, yet with expertise neither in physics nor in physiology, claimed he would resolve on physiological grounds the "Streit zwischen den Anhängern Neutons und Eulers." In his Versuch über das Licht (1800), Engel identified the crux of Euler's objections to reside in the problem of the impenetrability of matter. If rays of "corpuscles," even the most minute, were supposed to be 37

38

39

Preston, p. 25. See also: Poggendorff, Handwörterbuch zur Geschichte der exacten Wissenschaften, I (Leipzig: Barth, 1863), ii. T o John Rickman, 17 July 1812, Collected Letters of Samuel Taylor Coleridge, ed. Earl Leslie Griggs (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1959), III, 414. Richard Saumarez, A Dissertation on the Universe in general and on the Procession of the Elements in particular (London, 1795); "Observations of the Generation and the Principles of Life," London Medical and Physical Journal, II (1799), 242, 321; The Principles of Physiological and Physical Science; Comprehending the Ends for which Animated Beings were Created; and Examination of the unnatural and artificial Systems of Philosophy which now Prevail (London, 1812). Saumarez, A New System of Physiology, 2 vols. (London, 1798; 2nd ed. 1799; 3rd ed. 1813).

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27

whizzing about at the immense speed determined by R ö m e r (1676), then every day would dawn with a catastrophic bombardment. T h e manifold impact would riddle and disintegrate all solid objects whether opaque or transparent. Engel's resolution was to redefine the notion of impenetrability b y reconsidering the senses. His first chapter deals with " G e f ü h l " basically as a sense of resistance (pressure, weight, mass, force, density, attraction, repulsion). Although nervous sensitivity has been variously refined (as hearing, taste, sight, smell) among the specialized organs of the human body, the very cohesive structure of the body has contributed to a capacity of sensation that could only reinforce the perception of resistance and the notion of impenetrability. Engel accepted the Melville-Canton hypothesis, modifying N e w t o n ' s "fits of easy transmission" from a constant emission to a pulsing emanation. T h e material nature of light, Engel then asserted, was unique; therefore it could not be expected to conform to the laws of hydrostatics, etc. After appropriating a corpuscular-emanation theory as a compromise between N e w t o n ' s emission theory and Euler's wave-theory, Engel proceeded to argue the universal penetrability of light. In his closing chapter, " U e b e r den wahren Begriff der E m a n a t i o n , " Engel distinguished between stoßen and fließen to argue an essentially electrical or magnetic mode of propagation, a positive-negative polarity between the sun and the planet. 40 Shortly after his death in 1802, a tolerant review of Engel's w o r k appeared in Wolff's Annalen der chemischen Literatur, I (1803). N o t tolerant at all, however, was A c h i m von Arnim's response to the Versuch über das Licht. Arnim's hostile review, perhaps intended for W o l f f ' s Annalen then deemed inappropriate following Engel's death, survives only in manuscript. Although he had himself emphatically declared, "Alle Physik läuft darauf hinaus einen Sinn durch den andern zu construiren," he opposed Engel's attempt at a physiological approach to physics. Just as G o e t h e had rejected as materialistic both the corpuscular and undular theories of N e w t o n and Euler, Arnim exposed the inadequacies of Engel's materialistic defense: " M a n sieht, daß dieser Beweis, solange die vorhergehenden Einwände nicht beantwortet unhaltbar ist, wenn ich gleich eben weil ich weder das Licht für Materie, noch für Schwingungen wie Euler halte, glaube daß von Durchdringlich-

40

Johann Jakob Engel, Versuch über das Licht (Berlin: Mylius, 1800). For biography see: Karl Heinrich Jördens, "J.J. Engel," in Lexikon deutscher Dichter und Prosaisten (Berlin, 1806), I, 444—477; Friedrich Nicolai, Gedächtnisschrift auf Johann Jakob Engel (Berlin, 1806).

28

Goethe's Farbenlehre:

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keit oder Undurchdringlichkeit gar nicht die Rede seyn kann."41 Arnim sought a theory of propagation, one which would explain both light and sensation, in electricity. In his notes on the Farbenlehre, Arnim queried whether Berthollet's insistence that relative masses influence chemical affinity (Essai de statique chimique, 1803) might also explain the sensory activity stimulated by the optical tension in Goethe's "trübes Mittel." Arnim himself had been involved in the research that led Davy and Ritter to interpret chemical affinity in terms of electrical influence. Like Ritter, he tested on his own body the reaction of his sensory organs to electrical stimuli and tried in vain to find some way to measure the electrical response in sensation. Neither Ritter nor Arnim succeeded in this research: not until mid-century did James Clerk Maxwell's identification of light with electromagnetic radiation receive adequate corroboration; an account of the electrical processes of the neuron and a measurement of the electrical activity of the nervous system was not forthcoming until the end of the century.42 During the period of Goethe's preparation of the Farbenlehre, Thomas Young made valuable contributions to both physiological and physical optics. After Young returned in 1797 from Göttingen where he had studied under Lichtenberg (physics), Blumenbach (natural history, physiology, comparative anatomy), and Arnemann (materia medica),43 he was admitted to Emmanuel College, Cambridge. Here he was no longer reading medicine but conducting experiments in dynamics. His papers for the Royal Society reveal his efforts to wed physics and physiology: "Sound and Light" (read 16 Jan. 1800) contained his first experiments with wave theory; "On the Mechanism of the Eye" (read 27 Nov. 1800) delivered eight dioptrical propositions from which he infer-

41

42

43

Goethe-Schiller Archiv, Nationale Forschungs- und Gedenkstätte, Weimar; Achim von Arnim, mss. GSA 213/13: "Versuch über das Licht von J. J. Engel"; GSA 213/12 "Über die Farben des Lichts und Farbenveränderung durch die Elektrizität"; GSA 213/1 "Göthes Farbenlehre." I discuss GSA 213/5 "Aphorismen zur Theorie des Lichts," in Ch. V. Achim von Arnim, "Bemerkungen über Volta's Säule," Annalen der Physik, IV (1800), 163-196, 257-283. Armin Hermann, ed., Die Begründung der Elektrochemie und Entdeckung der Ultravioletten Strahlen von J. W. Ritter (Frankfurt/aM: Akademische Verlagsgesellschaft, 1968). James Clerk Maxwell, Electricity and Magnetism (London, 1873). Richart Caton: electric skin potential of animals (1875); Hans Berger: electroencephalograph (1902); see: J. Erlanger and H. S. Gasser, Electrical Signs of Nervous Activity (Philadelphia: University of Philadelphia Press, 1937); H. S. Gasser, "Electrical Signs of Biological Activity "Journal of Applied Physics, I X (1938), 88—96. Alexander Wood, Thomas Young, Natural Philosopher, 1773-1829 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1954), pp. 42-44.

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29

red the range and operations of the refractive powers of the eye; "On the Theory of Light and Colours" (read 12 Nov. 1801) presented the hypothesis that "Undulations are excited... whenever a body becomes luminous" and "The sensation of different colours depends on the different frequency of vibrations excited by light on the retina." Young's key proposition supporting the wave theory was derived from his demonstration of interference. In the scholium to his hypothesis on color sensation, Young asserted that three color receptors are sufficient to account for color vision.44 After being chastized for his reference in "Sound and Light" to Smith's Harmonics (1749) as "obscure" and "impractible," 45 Young exercised deference in his "Theory of Light and Colours," documenting from the Opticks, Book II, the principle of interference, and from Queries 12-17, Book III, the vibration of light. His research took him into the very center of the Newtonian controversy. The needed corroboration of Young's evidence for the wave theory was not forthcoming until Augustin Fresnel reported his research, "La diffraction de la lumiere" (Oct. 1815). Not until they were revived by Hermann von Helmholtz, after lying forgotten in the Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society for fifty years, did the three-receptor proposition find support.46 Because support was slow in coming, Young had to bear for several years the rancor of the Newtonian establishment. Henry Brougham, who later moved from science to politics, possessed a strong commitment to party allegiance within the academy and upheld with staunch conservative loyalty the theory of corpuscular emission. His "Experiments and Observations on the Inflection, Reflec-

44

" O n the Theory of Light and Colours" (Bakerian Lecture, 12 Nov. 1801), Philosophical Transactions, 1802, pp. 12-48. In Hypothesis II and Scholium, Young argued that rather than "vibrating in perfect unison with every possible undulation," the retina probably responds "to the three principal colours, red, yellow, and blue." Young further developed the three-receptor theory in "Experiments and Calculations relative to Physical Optics" (Bakerian lecture, 24 Nov. 1803), Phil. Trans., 1804, pp. 1-16. In the fifth section, he described his experiments with additive and subtractive primaries.

45

Wood, 155, 157. The rebuke came from John Gough and John Robison. Augustin Fresnel, "La diffraction de la lumière," Annales de Chimie et Physique, (2) I (1816), 239; in Oeuvres Complètes (Paris, 1866), I, 89-129. Only after the presentation of this paper (October 1815) did Fresnel learn, through Dominique François Arago, of Young's earlier work; in his subsequent publication on interference and diffraction, Fresnel acknowledged Young's priority. Young, in his "Chromatics" (1817), assembled Arago's formulae on transversal waves, and Fresnel's on the hyperbola of diffraction fringes, into a full account of the production of color by the undular activity of light, Miscellaneous Works, ed. George Peacock (London: Murray, 1855), I, 279-342.

46

30

Goethe's Farbenlehre:

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tion, and Coloured Light" (1796, 1797)47 attempted to explain the relationship between light bending outside bodies (reflection, diffraction) and light bending inside bodies (refraction). Brougham assumed that the corpuscles existed in various sizes, corresponding to their „diverse refrangibility," and each size was attracted or repelled according to the pattern of force extending from the surface of a body.48 When Young came forth with his very different explanation in his "Theory of Light and Colours," Brougham responded with scorn: "this paper contains nothing which deserves the name, either of experiment or discovery, . . . it is in fact destitute of every species of merit." For his effort to acknowledge the Opticks in explaining interference, Young is accused of distorting "the opinion of Sir Isaac Newton, in order to obtain the apparent sanction of authority for his theory." In attempting to adapt Euler's theory to the "Observations" of Book II, Young perpetrated "the absurdity of supposing that the idea of an ether, thrown out at random by Sir Isaac Newton, has the smallest affinity with the clumsy theory of Euler." Not until he had adapted from Arago the transverse movement of light waves could Young adequately explain undular propagation. Brougham emphasized the clumsiness: "the clumsy theory of Euler and Dr. Young is, that the ether itself constitutes light; and their object is to twist the facts into some sort of an agreement with what they conceive might be the laws of this fluid." Brougham claimed that he could only "pity the misguided pursuits of an ingenious man, who seems to have systematized into a sort of theory the method of wasting time." Yet indulging "those wild phantoms of the imagination," he judged as a perversion, a mental masturbation: "It is the unmanly and unfruitful pleasure of the boyish and prurient imagination, or the gratification of a corrupted and depraved appetite."49 In his review of Young's "Account of some Cases of the Production of Colours, not hitherto described" (read 24 June 1802), Brougham continued to attack "what the Doctor calls his 'general laws of interference', a part, he says, of the undulatory system." His experiments, Brougham wrote, were as "clumsy" as his theory. Objecting to the "confusion" of Young's explanation of the blue/yellow colors in a candle

47

48

49

Henry Brougham, "Experiments and Observations on the Inflection, Reflection, and Coloured Light," Phil. Trans., 1796, 237-251; "Further Experiments and Observations on the Affections and Properties of Light," Phil. Trans., 1797, pp. 352-385. Richard Olson, Scottish Philosophy and British Physics, 1750-1880 (Princeton: Princeton University, 1975), pp. 219-224. Brougham, "The Bakerian Lecture on the Theory of Light and Colours. By Thomas Young," Edinburgh Review, I (Jan. 1803), 450-456.

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31

flame, Brougham summarized his own account, based on the size of the particles, flexibility of the rays, and the forces of attraction and repulsion in the flame. He then invited the readers to judge "whether Dr. Young's solution or ours, is the most entitled to their favour." Like "jesting Pilate" in Bacon's essay, Brougham "would not stay for an answer." Instead, he closed with a plea to the Royal Society "that it should cease to give its countenance to such vain theories."50 Having experienced himself the scorn of the Newtonian physicists, Young might have exercised greater tolerance in his review of the Farbenlehre. Part of the problem was that Young, who had persisted in identifying his research as stolidly within the Newtonian tradition, was clearly embarrassed by the forthright assertions of an anti-Newtonian approach, not just by Goethe, but also by Thomas Seebeck in his study of phosphorescence which Goethe had included in the Farbenlehre. As a scientist thoroughly familiar with the physiology of the eye and the physics of light, he was certainly in a position to evaluate the merit of Goethe's accomplishment. Nevertheless, he approached the task with a "curiosity" biased with obvious disdain for this "striking example of the perversion of the human faculties." Why did Young express such aversion? Because, as he saw it, Goethe had allowed his dilettante pursuit to grow into a "malady". Young was ready to acquit him for having "originally mistaken his way, for want of profitting by the assistance of a judicious guide." But he found it pernicious that Goethe would misuse his literary talent by turning it to "obloquy and invective." Not all is negative in this review. In summarizing the "Didaktischer Theil," Young approved the "Physiologische Farben," pausing to replace Goethe's mistaken account of the halo around a candle with a mistaken conjecture of his own (he attributed it to fluid on the surface of the eye). Young endorsed Goethe's explanation of certain pathological conditions of color-blindness and color confusion, pointing out that a similar hypothesis had been forwarded by John Dalton, "Extraordinary facts relating to the vision of colours" (1794). Young had no objection to Goethe's description of the "Physische" and "Chemische Farben," but he was apparently bemused by Goethe's associating the physiological 50

Brougham, "An Account of some Cases of the production of Colours not hitherto described. By Thomas Young," Edinburgh Review, I (Jan. 1803), 45-460. When William Hyde Wollaston, in "On the Oblique Reflection of Iceland Crystal" (read 24 June 1802), accepted Young's account of undular propagation, Brougham expressed his disappointment "that so acute and ingenious an experimentalist had adopted the wild optical theory of vibrations." Failing to "admit the materiality of light," misrepresenting it as "a vibration propagated through the medium," is "an untenable and useless hypothesis," Edinburgh Review, II (April 1803), 99.

32

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colors with the physical colors, granting the subjective-objective phenomena to be "little more real." Without even intruding a question, he explained Goethe's analogical interpretation of colors "as intimately connected with the phenomena exhibited by the magnet, the tourmalin, the electrical machine, the galvanic battery, and the processes of chemistry." It was only when Goethe applied the principle of polarity to the "Urphänomen" and "trübes Mittel," that Young took issue, but on an objective rather than subjective ground: the most elementary (Urphänomen) of them (Goethe's opinions) seems to be, that red is generally and essentially derived.from the perception of light, and blue from that of darkness, viewed through a semitransparent medium (trübes Mittel); a fact by no means universally admissable, and which, where it actually occurs, may be referred to a combination of much simpler causes.51

In the "Polemischer Theil," said Young, Goethe "has shown no small portion of courage, though little of the better part of valour." Young rested his case with one example: Goethe's description of the results of Newton's first experiment (red and blue squares viewed through a prism) failed to recognize that "the blue image is manifestly more displaced by the effect of refraction, than the red." Of the antiNewtonian narrative in the "Historischer Theil," Young reported that "the author has exhibited some industry, but little talent, and less judgment." He then translated the "Confession des Verfassers" in order to exhibit the "singularity" of Goethe's conviction. Young's review of the Farbenlehre was far different than the reception it had been accorded from physicists in Germany. Mollweide exercised a mixture of sarcasm and pedantic condescension in his several essays of repudiation. Poselger assumed that great damage might be done to the science of optics unless Goethe's mistakes were thoroughly exposed. Etienne Malus proceeded in a matter-of-fact manner to correct Goethe's deductions.52 Young may have well recognized that his dilettant pursuit might have a rationale of its own. Yet it was not a rationale that he could possibly sanction in terms of physics, not just because of his discomfort at the anti-Newtonian polemics, but more profoundly because of Goethe's inability to understand physical optics. Nor was he willing to lend his sanction to the physiological analysis, perhaps because he was so committed to the three-receptor theory that he could not even recognize 51

52

Young, "Zur Farbenlehre. On the Doctrine of Colours. By Goethe," Quarterly Review, X (Jan. 1814), 427-44. Karl Brandan Mollweide, Zachs monatliche Correspondes (July 1810), 91-93; Mollweide, Darstellung der optischen Irrthümer in des Hrn. v. Goethe Farbenlehre und Widerlegung seiner Einwürfe gegen die Newtonische Theorie (Halle: Kümmel, 1811); Friedrich Theodor Poselger, Annalen der Physik, XXXVIII (1811), 135-154; Etienne Malus, Annalen der Physik, X L (1812), 103-115.

Goethe's Farbenlehre: The Newtonian Controversy

33

the merits of a theory based on color-opposition. Since he began by acknowledging Goethe's literary accomplishment, it is peculiar that Young made little mention of Goethe's application of this theory to art and aesthetics. The neglect cannot be attributed to Young's own want of interest in aesthetics. From a student paper delivered to the Royal Society when he was twenty, "Observations on Vision" (read 30 May 1793), he footnoted his own youthful speculations on the aesthetic appeal of "those colours, which together approach near to white light," but he quickly denied any expertise in such matters: "We are not prepared to decide positively, how much either of originality or of truth there may be in these opinions." Although he thus demurred from addressing the "Sinnlich-sittliche Wirkung der Farbe," he translated a lengthy section from Meyer's "Geschichte des Colorits," with the hope that readers who are "either engaged in the study of painting, or deeply interested in its advancement, will be gratified by the perusal of these original and ingenious, though, perhaps, somewhat fanciful, remarks." In addition to the attempt, sometimes wayward or wrong, to explain the physics and the physiology of color, the Farbenlehre was also concerned with the aesthetics of perception. Young seemed to appreciate the range of these deliberations, but he was not willing to trade roles with Goethe and expose himself as dilettant in aesthetics. Instead, he returned to safe ground and closed with a summary of Thomas Seebeck's contribution on solar phosphori. Again, he translated extensively. H e added only one qualification to his general approbation: "the example of Dr. Seebeck, who professes himself an Anti-Newtonian, may be sufficient to show, that a bad theorist is sometimes capable of making correct and valuable combinations of experimental investigations." N o w this is certainly more than Brougham had granted Young. Clearly the term "Anti-Newtonian" did not mean the same thing in Britain that it meant on the Continent. Young defended his theory in terms of the Opticks. For him, the pretense of an "anti-Newtonian science" involved a contradiction of terms. Thus, in a review of Seebeck's "Versuche über Spiegelung und Brechung" (1813), Young confirmed the conclusions but faulted the presumptions: Dr. Seebeck's language is a little enveloped in the mysticism of the school to which, by some singular caprice of fancy, he has thought fit to attach himself: but we cannot hesitate to believe, that as he continues his examination of the phenomena of nature, he will by degrees be persuaded of the futility of the objections, which Mr. von Goethe has advanced against the Newtonian doctrine of the composition of white light, and of the inaccuracy of the assertions on which some of those objections are grounded. 53 53

Young, "Malus, Biot, Seebeck, and Brewster on Light," Quarterly Review, 1814), 42-56.

XI (April

34

Goethe's Farbenlehre: The Newtonian Controversy

From the British perspective, "Anti-Newtonian" had become associated with the mysticism, metaphysics, and occult speculation of the "Naturphilosophie." The corpuscular theory was not renounced and replaced by the undular theory. Rather, the effort was made to integrate the two accounts of propagation. David Brewster's Treatise on Optics (1831) provided the model for the Newtonian compromise: revision rather than renunciation. Until the existence of "a lumineferous ether" could be proven, a most unlikely event, Brewster advocated a continued reliance on the inductive procedure established in Newton's Opticks. Altering the propositions on rectilinear emission, Brewster utilized the pertinent evidence of transverse waves; however useful such evidence might be to explaining the phenomena, Brewster insisted that it must be held as provisional and conjectural, relegated to subservience as a convenient but tentative hypothesis. 54 Ardent in his advocacy of the Newtonian system, Brewster was predictably outraged by Goethe's repudiation of Newton, which he first encountered in Charles Eastlake's translation, Theory of Colours (1840). Brewster claimed "long acquaintance with the optical lucubrations of Goethe," but only "through brief details of his experiments." Because of his admiration for "the genius of the poet," he made concessions for "the errors of the philosopher," and was willing "to welcome into our sombre territory the bold, though unbidden minstrel, who could set to music the abstractions of science." The Beiträge zur Optik Brewster deemed innocuous, "alarming neither to the ear nor to the eye," but the Farbenlehre he considered obscene and dangerous: when we found that its author had assailed the mild precepts of Newton with the shafts of sarcasm and ridicule and had marshalled against them all the mysticism of an unbridled imagination - all the ambiguities of allegory and symbol - and all the sophistries of German metaphysics, we felt it an especial obligation to arrest the currency which was thus given to error; and to protect our Inductive Philosophy from the inroad of a new school, in which the reason and the imagination were permitted to exercise a mingled and a dangerous control. 55

The obscenity was Goethe's Anti-Newtonian polemics; the danger was the threat to inductive reasoning. Brewster charged Eastlake with irresponsibility for recommending his translation to art students as a text 54

55

Olson, Scottish Philosophy and British Physics, pp. 177-185, documents Brewster's position on the undular "hypothesis"; see: Brewster, "Report on the Recent Progress of Optics," Report for the First and Second Meetings of the British Association for the Advancement of Science, at York in 1831, and at Oxford, 1832 (London, 1935), pp. 308-322. Brewster, "Goethe's Theory of Colours. Translated from the German with Notes, by Charles Lock Eastlake," Edinburgh Review, LXXII (Oct. 1840, 99-131.)

Goethe's Farbenlehre: The Newtonian Controversy

35

preferable to Newton's Opticks because "more directly applicable to the theory and practice of painting." The critical attack was aimed, then, at Eastlake for daring to allege the "superiority of Goethe's optical views to those of Newton, in reference to art." N o t only did the Farbenlehre "contain more useful principles in all that relates to harmony of colour, than any that have been derived from the established doctrine," wrote Eastlake, "the clearness and fulness of Goethe's experiments" also made it possible for him to trace "the colours to their origin and simplest elements." He praised especially the constant attention to "the phenomena of contrast and gradation, two principles which may be said to make up the artist's world." In his essay on "Colour, Light, and Shade" he adapted Goethe's observations on "local hues," and in "Negative Light and Shade" the technique of placing a color "on one side of a semi-diaphanous substance" to create "its negative light on the opposite side" is the same as Goethe proposed in his dioptrics. 56 Since Goethe had elucidated, "with very great improvements," the principles which informed the practice of the great artists from classical antiquity through the Italian renaissance, Eastlake promised notes "to point out the connexion between this theory and the practice of the Italian painters." Fully aware the "English scientific readers" would resent Goethe as "an opponent of Newton," he appealed to their "magnanimity" and attempted to disarm their antagonism by avoiding Goethe's repudiation of the Newtonian theory; instead, he defended the Farbenlehre for its careful attention to "the action and the re-action of the eye itself" which Newton had "scarcely hinted at." He quoted Johannes Müller's tribute in Zur vergleichenden Physiologie des Gesichtssinnes (1826), and added the names of Hegel, Schelling, Seebeck, and Steffens as "authorities more or less favorable to the Farbenlehre." 57 Brewster eschewed magnanimity and refused to be disarmed. For all his expertise in physical optics, however, he was not well equipped to do battle on the grounds Eastlake had defined. He had originally intended, Brewster wrote, "to examine the 'pleasing and varied series of illustrative figures' which Goethe promises to pass before us," and then "to devote the second part of the article to a separate examination of Mr. Eastlake's annotations." He abandoned this procedure to avoid "needless repeti-

56

57

Eastlake, Materials for a History of Oil Painting, II (London: Longman, 1869), pp. 299, 316. Eastlake, "Translator's Preface," Goethe's Theory of Colours (London: John Murray, 1840). See also D.B. Judd's introduction to the reprint of this edition (Cambridge, Mass.: M. I.T. Press, 1970), and David Robertson, Sir Charles Eastlake and the Victorian Art World (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1978), pp. 54-55.

36

Goethe's Farbenlehre: The N e w t o n i a n Controversy

tion." Instead, he tried to discredit Eastlake by selecting those instances where he had unwittingly appropriated into his annotations Goethe's error in physical optics. Eastlake approved Goethe's law of polarity, gradation, and totality, cited his analysis of Newton's Experimentum crucis, in which "by reversing the prismatic colours (refracting a dark instead of light objects), the colours that are the most refrangible in Newton's experiment become the least so, and vice versa." In support, Eastlake cited Brewster: the difference of colour is not a test of difference of refrangibility, and the conclusion deduced by Newton is no longer admissible as a general truth, that to the same degree of refrangibility ever belongs the same colour, and to the same colour ever belongs the same degree of refrangibility.58

What stirred Brewster to respond here was probably that Eastlake had subordinated his revision of the seven colors as a footnote to Goethe. Brewster himself had challenged Newton's claim that the spectrum is divided into seven distinct colors in his paper, "On a New Analysis of Solar Light" (1831).59 Brewster dipped his pen into irony when he wrote, "Who ever doubted that there are seven coloured spaces in the spectrum?" Now defending Newton against both Goethe's text and his own, Brewster framed his answer with ingenuity: when Newton described seven colors, "he stated only a fact which was true in reference to the spectrum which he studied." To put the matter to rest, "that we may not again refer to the seven colours denounced by Mr. Eastlake," he provided a summary of his own "New Analysis," that "the seven arise from the superposition of three spectra of equal length, viz. a red, a yellow, and a blue spectrum." Brewster then repeated the very lines from Treatise on Optics that Eastlake had quoted in his note, with the conclusion that this was not an "error" but a "defect" in Newton. Thus he could only extend the exoneration, for "the superimposition of colours in the spectrum was as little known to Goethe as it was to Newton." As inventor of the kaleidoscope and author of a book on its construction as well as optical tricks to perform with this popular "philosophical toy," Brewster obviously had a fascination with the playful aspects of 58

59

Brewster, Treatise on Optics (London, 1831), p. 72, quoted in Eastlake, Goethe's Theorie of Colour, Note Ρ (§284). Brewster, "On a New Analysis of Solar Light, indicating three Primary colours, forming Coincident Spectra of Equal length" (read March 1831), Transactions of the Royal Society of Edinburgh, XII (1834), 123-136; cf. Brewster, Treatise on Optics, pp. 72-74; Brewster, Life of Sir Isaac Newton (London, 1831), p. 64; see also the criticism of Newton in Brewster, "On Certain New Phenomena of Color in Labrador Feldspar" (read 20 May 1829), Transactions of the Royal Society of Edinburgh, XI (1831), 322.

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37

optics. Even though he had also assembled an entertaining account of optical illusions in his Letters on Natural Magic (1832), he had apparently given little thought to physiological and psychological attributes of color perception.60 For example, when Goethe correctly attributed the flash of red and yellow flowers at twilight to a physiological response of the retina (the photopic-scotopic shift now known as the Purkinje effect), he implied that Goethe had exaggerated phenomena which were too faint to be mistaken for phosphorescence (not Goethe's mistake); yet in dismissing Goethe's account, Brewster had nothing better to offer: "When the truth of the original fact is well ascertained, it will not be difficult to find out its cause." Abundant research in perception psychology as well as in the physiology of vision would now support Goethe's contention that "we ought to call any light coloured inasmuch as it is seen," that "colourless light" and "colourless surfaces" are "abstract ideas" rather than "actual experience" in perception (§690). Brewster, however, had no patience with this subjective study of color: "there is not a single syllable of scientific truth in the preceding passage." Brewster insisted upon an objective whiteness: "White lead is sufficiently white to paint the drapery of angels"; "we have seen artificial flames so white, that no eye could trace in them the slightest vestige of colour." To return to Brewster his mocking request of Goethe, "he should have made this experiment and reported the result of it." Whether Eastlake succeeded, in spite of Brewster, in persuading the artists of the age to use Goethe's Theory of Colours, is a matter as yet little explored. One fact in the record is J. M. W. Turner's Light and Colour (Goethe's Theory) - the Morning after the Deluge - Moses Writing the Book of Genesis (exhibited 1843). What this fact means has been variously interpreted." Did Turner's title indicate a utilization or a Brewster, Treatise on the Kaleidoscope (Edinburgh: Constable, 1819); Brewster, Letters on Natural Magic, addressed to Sir Walter Scott (London: John Murray, 1832), Letter II, 8-36, discussed physiological colors; Letter IV, 56-97, illusions performed with mirrors; Letter V, optical illusions, 98-126; Letter VI, 127-156, mirages and fata morgana. " C . J . Holmes, "Turner's Theory of Colouring," Burlington Magazine, VII (1905); R. D. Gray, "J. M. W. Turner and Goethe's Colour-Theory," German Studies Presented to Walter Horace Bruford (London: George G.Harrap, 1962), pp. 112-116; Gerald E. Finley, "Turner: and early Experiment with Color Theory," Journal of the Warburg and Courtland Institute, X X X (1967), 357-366. John Gage, "Turner and Goethe," in Color in Turner, Poetry and Truth (New York: Frederick A. Praeger, 1969), pp. 173-188; Finley, "Turner's Colour and Optics: A 'New route' in 1822 "Journal of the Warburg and Courtland Institute, X X X V I (1973), 385-390. See also: Gage, "Turner's Academic Friendships: C. L. Eastlake," Burlington Magazine, C X (Dec. 1968), 677-685. 60

38

Goethe's Farbenlehre:

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refutation of Goethe's color theory? The same question must be asked about the companion-picture, Shade and Darkness - the Evening of the Deluge. The similarity in color relationship also implicates other late companion pieces: Peace — Burial at Sea and War, the Exile, and the Rock Limpet (1842); Undine giving the Ring to Massaniello and The Angel Standing in the Sun (1846). Another question arises: Did Goethe's color theory have any influence on Turner during the earlier stages of his long career? He may well have known Goethe's Farbenlehre from Young's review or other commentaries, and it must have been discussed among Turner's German acquaintances in Rome, 1819.62 Even if he had little direct knowledge of Goethe's theory before he annotated his copy of Eastlake's translation, Turner had read several works strikingly similar in thesis and exposition." Goethe himself had acknowledged his debt to Aristotle in defining the origin of color in the interaction of light and darkness. His laws of polarity, gradation, and totality were not his exclusive discovery. Count Rumford had explained the phenomena of colored shadows in his "Conjectures respecting the Principles of the Harmony of Colours" (read 20 Feb. 1794). Moses Harris, in Natural System of Colours (1811), devised a triadic color-wheel based with the complementary colors on opposing sides, the three primary colors (red, yellow, blue) and their compounds (orange, green, purple). From Ritter, Goethe had appropriated the electrical, magnetic, and galvanic analogues: the positive or oxygen pole of the Voltaic battery stimulated sensations of red when touched to the eye, the negative or hydrogen pole stimulated blue. George Field incorporated this same analogical analysis of polarity in his Chromatics (1817). The polarity of yellow and blue as active and passive colors, the one allied with light and the other with

62

63

Gage, Color in Turner, p. 185, names J . D . Passavant and C . F . Rumohr. To Gerald Finley, I owe the following reference: Sarah Austin, Characteristics of Goethe, 3 vols. (London, 1833), I, 134, '"My chromatic pursuits occupied me in silence. I endeavoured to make myself acquainted with what had been done on the subject in England, and sought to make their works, and ways of thinking, clear and distinct to my own mind; these were Bancroft, Sowerby, Reid and Brewster. On the one side I remarked with pleasure, that they, by pure observation of phenomena, had approached the course indicated by Nature, and, indeed, had sometimes touched it: on the other I saw, with regret, that they could not entirely free themselves from the dominion of the old error, that colour is contained in light'" (Goethe, Tages-und-Jahres Hefte, 1817). Gage, Color in Turner, pp. 181-185, discussed Anton Raphael Mengs, Lezioni pratiche di pittura (Parma, 1780); Thomas Maltón, A Complete Treatise on Perspective (London, 1775); George Field, Chromatics (London, 1817), and Chromatography (London, 1835).

Goethe's Farbenlehreι

The Newtonian Controversy

39

shade, had become a commonplace in contemporary studies on color.64 After his appointment as Professor of Perspective at the Royal Academy in 1807, Turner read extensively in the literature on optics and chromatics, as well as perspective. His preparation for his lectures had an obvious, though not immediate, influence on his painting. In 1818, Lecture V, he introduced the topic of light and color.65 John Gage has observed an increased involvement with luminous color beginning at this time; Gerald Finley has dated the use of the red-yellow-blue triad after 1822." The triadic color scheme vs. color polarity can be recognized as the principal difference which distinguishes Turner's representation of light and color phenomena from Goethe's observations in the Farbenlehre. Further, Turner thought that Goethe had placed too little emphasis on the evocative power of shade. A third difference, a practical instance of the theoretical problem Lessing raised in Laokoon, oder Uber die Grenzen der Malerei und Poesie (1766), Goethe and Turner disagreed on the temporal attributes of color. Although such features may be traced back through Turner's paintings in the 1820's and 1830's, I find them more obvious in the companion-pieces exhibited in the 1840's when Turner deliberately addressed the controversy over Eastlake's presentation of Goethe's Color Theory as handbook for artists. Just as Faust saw in the waterfall "des bunten Bogens Wechseldauer" (1. 4722), Goethe described the prismatic "Strahlungen" as images of the active process of light. Turner, of course, knew that paint and pigment could only mimic 64

65

66

Finley, "Turner: An Early Experiment with Colour Theory," JWCI, X X X , 358-359, summarizes the theories of Moses Harris, Natural System of Colours, ed. Thomas Martyn (London, 1811); M.Gartside, An Essay on a New Theory of Colours (2nd ed.; London, 1808). Gerald Finley has called my attention to the relevance of James Sowerby, A New Elucidation of Colour (London, 1809) and Joseph Reade, Experimental Outlines for a New Theory of Colour (London, 1816). Gage, Colour in Turner, p. I l l , quotes from Turner's prose: "Light is therefore colour, and shadow the privation of it by the removal of these rays of colour, or subduction of power; and these are to be found throughout nature in the ruling principles of diurnal variations. The gray dawn, the yellow morning and red departing ray, in ever changing combination, are constantly found to be by subduction or inversion of r a y ( s ) or their tangent(s)." Turner's rainbows (e.g., Buttermere Lake, The Wreak Buoy, and Fall of the Rhine at Schaffhausen) are painted in shades of dark to light grey and grey-green; instead of the Newtonian, seven-color rainbow, Turner proposed a three-color arc of red, yellow, and blue. Finley, "Turner's Colour and Optics: A 'New Route' in 1822," JWCI, XXXVI, 386-387, rejects Gage's attempt to relate the shift in Turner's color development to a familiarity with Brewster's theory as early as 1818; Finley dates the "new route" from Turner's collaboration with James Skene in 1822, as documented by Skene in "Painting in England," Edinburgh Encyclopaedia, XVI, Part I (1823), 263-264.

40

Goethe's Farbenlehre: The Newtonian Controversy

the optical phenomena of moving light. Thus, when Goethe claims that "in the ordinary prismatic series, the yellow-red and blue-red cannot attain to union" (§ 814), Turner called attention to the temporal distinction between the process of light and the hypostasis of the painting: these (colours) cannot travel out of their course - being the product of light - not so painting: her combinations are bounded only by confustion (confusion) and the phenomenon which nature exhibits.'7

Where Goethe wrote of the "contrast" ("Gegenwirkung") of the active phenomena, Turner naturally thought of the "union" of colors on the canvas (§273). Although Goethe considered the colors in terms of their polarity, red always attends the blue and yellow opposition. H e saw three colors, not two, in the prismatic tension. H e identified red as the "Urfarbe," the first to break from the boundary of light and darkness. The dioptric "Strahlungen" from the yellow-red pole and the blue-red pole merge, white on a black background, to form green ("gemeine Verbindung"); in the inverse sequence, black on a white background, to form purple ("edle Verbindung"). The temporality of color is demonstrated in the dioptric effect of light through a transluscent medium. Goethe placed a mirror behind the milk-glass bust of Napoleon on his desk, so that he could observe the blue-violet tint as the light moved away, and the red-orange as the light approached him. Turner adapted catoptric mirroring as well as dioptric mediation to define time and movement in Peace - Burial at Sea and War, the Exile, and the Rock Limpet. In Peace, Turner contains a blaze of red-yellow at the center within the blackness of the ship and its sails ("I only wish I had any colour to make them blacker"), 68 covered by the blue-white of the sky swept by black smoke and mirrored symmetrically in the sea below. In War, he exercises the contrasting colors but baffles perspective in catoptric distortions. Napoleon, exiled in St. Helena, stands in the middle-ground, left of center where the yellow sun cuts into a red horizon and disperses these colors in a refracting vortex. Behind " Turner, marginal note to § 814; Turner's annotated copy of Eastlake's Goethe's Theory of Colour is in the C. W. M. Turner Collection. My references, including emendations, are from the transcription in Gage, Colour in Turner. In his commentary, pp. 173-180, Gage presents the marginalia thematically: notes on science and color, on mathematical optics and visible color, on the Theory as "painter's manual," on clarification of terms, on misunderstanding the text, on agreement concerning visual perception, on disagreement with language, on the role of shade, on anti-Newtonian position. 68 Alexander J. Finberg, The Life of J. M. W. Turner (London: Oxford University Press, 2nd ed. 1961), p. 391. Turner's comment may refer to the funereal import of black, or to the predilection for black in the paintings of Sir David Wilkie, whose burial at sea gave occasion to this painting.

Goethe's Farbenlehre:

The Newtonian Controversy

41

Napoleon, further left and higher toward the horizon, stands his guard; in the lower right the Limpet crawls upon a rock; the middle-ground is a watery plain mirroring the red-yellow refraction as well as the figures of Napoleon and the guard. Napoleon's black boots, coat, and hat bleed into blue in the mirrored image; the distant guard and his reflection are both tinged with a uniform red-yellow. Turner has manipulated the dimensions: the lines of perspective, which have rendered the guard half the size of Napoleon, are defied in the reflecting water, where their images are exactly the same size. Shade and Darkness and Light and Colour emphasis the vortex. Often discussed in Turner criticism," the vortex may be related to that phenomenon of dispersion of light through fog or mist which Goethe called the "dioptrischer Wirbel." In the earlier version of Shade and Darkness - the Evening of the Deluge, with its red tent in the foreground beneath a yellow-green sky, Turner obverted the dioptric array of "departing" colors. This version might well be considered as opposing Goethe's scheme. The exhibited version, however, fully appropriates the blue-black of evening in dioptric polarity to the red-yellow on Light and Colour (Goethe's theory) - the Morning after the Deluge. In the swirl of bodies drowned in the flood, Turner played with the temporally "transient" ("vorübergehend") epoptic colours of "bubbles," a detail he evidently sought to emphasize in the accompanying catalogue verse: "th' returning sun / Exhaled earth's humid bubbles, and emulous of light / Reflected her lost forms, each in prismatic guise."70 Undine giving the Ring to Massaniello and The Angel Standing in the Sun also engage the dioptric polarity and the epoptic succession; both center in a radiant woman of light. The former, a scene of

" Jack Lindsay, Turner: His Life and Work (London: Cory, Adams, MacKay, 1966), p. 163, explains Turner's vortex as copulating bodies, a symbol of the primal scene; Charles Stuckey, "Turner, Massaniello, and the Angel," Jahrbuch der Berliner Museen, XVIII (1976), 161-172, claims the vortex is a part of Turner's punning on his own name (wheels, circles, rings as visual sings of a turner); Ronald Paulson, "Turner's Graffiti: The Sun and its Glosses," in Images of Romanticism, Verbal and Visual Affinities, ed. Karl Kroeber and William Walling (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1978), p. 183-188, elaborates the account of the vortex as punning (Turner's name, his father's barber pole, the Sun and Earth as cosmic turners and the "I am" as visual center). 70 Lindsay, ed., The Sunset Ship: The Poems of J. M. W. Turner (London: Scorpion Press, 1966), p. 13, laments in his introductory essay that Turner "seems never to have read Keats and Shelley, outsiders at the time, who would have provided him with a contemporary idiom in poetry capable of saying the sort of thing he was putting into paint." Gage, Colour in Turner, pp. 146-147, 186, claims that Turner read Shelley's poetry in S. C. Hall's Book of Gems (1838), and that the captions to Sun of Venice and Light and Colour are both borrowed from Shelley, and he cites Prometheus Unbound (II, ii, 71-76) as the source for the latter.

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temptation, shows the "Fisherman of Naples" succumbing to the seduction of Undine; blinded by her light, he is oblivious of the looming blueblack sky and the rainbow-bubbling of the nymphs w h o pull upon his nets in the green waters. The latter, a scene of retribution, depicts the Angel of Apocalypse (Revelations xix: 17-18) within a red-yellow "dioptrischer Wirbel" and a panorama of biblical sins before (Cain flees as Adam and Eve mourn the slain Abel; Delilah shears the locks of Samson; Judith lifts up the head of decapitated Holofernes). If Turner intended to display "Goethe's Theory" through his use of the dioptric polarity in Light and Colour and Shade and Darkness, then a modest claim can be made for extending the attribution to other paintings of the period. It must be remembered, however, that Turner had brought many years of study into his representation of the manifold conditions affecting the perception of light and color. A sure course for the comparative study of Goethe and Turner could be pursued, however, simply by following John Gage's observation "that their similarity of outlook on the broad questions of the role and tendeny of science was matched by a common feeling for the detail of color." In the companion pieces, Mortlake Terrace, Summer's Morning and Summer's Evening (1827), Turner depicts the slant rays of sunlight in Evening visually obliterating the terrace wall, a stunning example of the paroptic phenomena Goethe described as the "sharp indentation in the horizon" (§419); Turner dramatizes the visual moment by posing a dog upon a wall, silhouetted against these shattering rays. Gage himself cites Turner's The Lake from Petworth House, Sunset as "a precise illustration of an observation in Goethe's Theory" (§17). 71 Among the Romantic painters in Germany, Philipp O t t o Runge won Goethe's praise for demonstrating the practical relevancy of his theory. In a letter to Runge (2 June 1806), with thanks for his etchings, Die Tageszeiten, Goethe wrote that he would also like to see one of the prints "nur illuminiert und angefärbt, nicht ausgemalt." Goethe revealed his motive: "Das gäbe vielleicht Gelegenheit, sich über Farbe und ihren Sinn wechselseitig zu äußern. Mögen Sie mir aber hierüber auch nur etwas in Worten mitteilen, so sollte es mir sehr angenehm sein." In his reply (3 July 1806), Runge described a red-yellow-blue triangle combined with an inverted orange-green-violet triangle to create a color wheel; he then discussed the harmony and disharmony of colors, their transparency and opacity, their alliance with black and white. Goethe answered, "daß Ihre Ansichten der Farben völlig mit den meinigen

71

Gage, Colour in Turner, p. 176.

Goethe's Farbenlehre: The Newtonian Controversy

43

übereintreffen"; so close was their agreement, Goethe admitted, that many passages from Runge's letter would confirm "beinahe wörtlich" his own in account in the forthcoming Farbenlehre. H e therefore asked Runge for permission to make use of the letter (22 Aug. 1806).72 Runge's letter was accordingly included, as "Zugabe" to the "Didaktischer Theil," when the Farbenlehre was published in 1810.73 Runge appreciated Goethe's "gütige Teilnahme" and declared "die größte Sehnsucht" for the completion of Goethe's work (23 Oct. 1807). Painfully aware of his own scanty familiarity with the vast literature on color theory, he sought Goethe's informed evaluation. Runge was sure of his thesis: "Ich glaube nicht, daß die Farbe gebrochne Lichtstrahlen sind; . . . i c h sage, daß das Licht die Farbe nur erzeugt." In accepting Runge as an ally against the Newtonian authority, Goethe was amused by Runge's naive fear that he had unintentionally repeated Newton, "daß N e w t o n dasselbe schon vollständiger gesagt hätte." 74 Although Goethe was generous with his encouragement, he shared little of his knowledge. Runge, for his part, was developing a theory that had only the basic premises in common with Goethe's. O n e year after he had sent Goethe an outline of his "Elemente der Farben," 75 Runge had already given his theory its grand spatial and temporal "Gestalt." His answer to Goethe's request, "daß ich Ihnen mit der Art meiner vorhabenden Experimente bekannt machen soll" (21 Nov. 1807), explained that he had now come to see "das Verhältnis der drei Farben zu Schwarz und Weiß" as a sphere: the color wheel he conceived as the equator; the axis was white at the north pole, black at the south pole. All gradations of gray, from black to white, were defined along the axis; at the equator the sequential modulation - red, orange, yellow, green, blue, violet - would be marked by degrees longitude. A cross-section at the 40° parallel north would provide a pole color wheel with each hue shading into white-gray 72

73

74

75

Hellmuth Freiherr von Maitzahn, ed. "Philipp Otto Runges Briefwechsel mit Johann Wolfgang von Goethe," Schriften der Goethe-Gesellschaft, LI (1940), 31. WA, II, Bd. 1, 360-371. Eastlake omitted this section from his translation, but acknowledged it in a note: "the author inserts a letter from a landscape-painter, Philipp Otto Runge, which is intended to show that those who imitate nature may arrive at principles analogous to those of the 'Farbenlehre,'" Goethe's Colour Theory, Note LL. Letter to Goethe (17 Sept. 1806), "Runges Briefwechsel mit Goethe," SG-G, LI, 50; Goethe quoted this as an anecdote in the "Polemischer Theil," WA, II, Bd. 2, p. 19. "Die Elemente der Farben," Hinterlassene Schriften (= HS) 2 vols., ed. Daniel Runge (Hamburg: Perthes, 1840-41; reprint, Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1965), I, 84-88; see also: letter to Hermann Baier (26 Sept. 1806), and the unaddressed letter ("Von 1807 or 1808," as dated by Daniel Runge; because it contains none of the temporal and spatial developments of the "Kugel," it must have been written before the letter to Goethe, 21 Nov. 1807), I, 98-112.

44

Goethe's Farbenlehre:

The Newtonian Controversy

toward the center; at the 40° parallel south, a dark color wheel shading into black-gray toward the center. Since any number of cross-sections might be made, at any degree longitude or latitude, the artist had a conceptual model for all possible hues and tones. Although he concluded this letter with speculations on transparent and opaque colors, and the coloration of "Luftperspective" and the effects of fog in transforming clear "Luft" into "Milchglas," he had yet to formulate his idea of the "Doppelwesen" or "Doppelheit der Farbe." In puzzling over the difference of the transparency and opacity of colors, Runge began to see an interpénétration of two spheres: one transparent with poles of light and dark, the other opaque with poles of white and black; the one world allied to the etherial, the other to the material. As his brother Daniel observed, Runge's concept of "Durchsichtigkeit" added to his threedimensional construct the "vierte Dimension, welche unsern Begriff vom Körper auflöset, oder ihn überschreitet." 76 After three years devoted to his study of light and color, Runge completed the draft of his Farbenkugel in March, 1809, and sent a copy directly to Henrik Steffens.77 Steffens, who had introduced Runge to the "Identitäts-Philosophie" of Schelling, must have been delighted to discover how effectively Runge's subjective-objective dimensionality transformed Schelling's construct into a perception theory as well as color theory. And he had done it without pretentious theorizing. He had simply told the story of color. Steffens proposed a companion essay on conditions in nature which influence color, an essay supporting what Runge had posited for painting with an analysis of physical and chemical phenomenon. 78 Both were well aware that they were in competition with Goethe. Consequently, they were careful to keep Goethe informed of their efforts. When he sent his manuscript, Runge asked Steffens about the possibility of publication, and about writing to Goethe. He also revealed his resentment that Goethe had given him no assistance:

76

77

78

"Von der Doppelheit der Farbe," HS, I, 141-146; Daniel Runge's note to the letter to Goethe (3 July 1806), HS, I, 93. Letter to Steffens (March 1809): "Du erhältst hiebey den versprochenen Aufsatz über die Farbenkugel, wie ich ihn der hiesigen Gesellschaft zur Beförderung der Künste und nützlichen Gewerbe überreicht habe, nachdem ich einige Anmerkungen über die Harmonie in den Farben hinzugefügt hatte," HS, I, 146. In a letter to Jacob Grimm (14 April 1809), Wilhelm Grimm refers to the ms. of Farbenkugel which Runge had sent to Steffens, Briefwechsel zwischen Jacob und Wilhelm Grimm aus der Jugendzeit, ed. Herman Grimm and Gustav Hinrichs (2nd ed.; Weimar: Herman Böhlaus Nachfolger, 1963), p. 87. Steffens to Runge (11 Sept. 1809), HS, II, 386-387.

Goethe's Farbenlehre:

The Newtonian Controversy

45

Ich erwarte mit Verlangen, was du mir darüber schreiben wirst; auch sage mir, ob du es nöthig findest, daß ich Goethe vorher etwas davon mittheile, weil ich mich über die Materie wohl schriftlich mit ihm unterhalten habe? Von ihm habe ich nichts nehmen können, da ich ihm zwar manches, er mir aber noch nichts mitgetheilt hat, möchte aber doch nicht, daß er im geringsten von mir dächte, als wollte ich fürwitzigerweise ihm vorgreifen, oder etwas hinter seinem Rücken thun, da er mich noch im Herbste sehr gütig zu einer mündlichen Unterhaltung über den Gegenstand zu sich eingeladen.7' Steffens f o r w a r d e d R u n g e ' s m a n u s c r i p t t o G o e t h e at the end o f Sept e m b e r , 1 8 0 9 , and G o e t h e r e s p o n d e d w i t h his blessings f o r t h e p r o j e c t : "Sie enthält nichts, w a s sich n i c h t an die meinige anschlösse, w a s nicht in das v o n m i r V o r g e t r a g e n e auf eine o d e r die andre W e i s e eingriffe." T h e Farbenkugel

w a s in p r i n t b y the beginning o f the n e w y e a r , several

m o n t h s b e f o r e G o e t h e ' s Farbenlehre.

R u n g e spent the m o n t h o f J a n u a r y

c o l o r i n g t h e plates b y h a n d . A t the beginning o f F e b r u a r y , 1 8 1 0 , R u n g e sent his " B ü c h l e i n ü b e r das Verhältnis der F a r b e n " t o Schelling and t o G o e t h e , and drafted t o t h e m b o t h letters a c k n o w l e d g i n g his debt and gratitude. H e w a n t e d t o tell Schelling h o w he had d i s c o v e r e d his o w n c o n c e p t o f the " T o t a l - V e r h ä l t n i s s e aller E r s c h e i n u n g " ( " u n t e r w e l c h e r m i r i m m e r die T o t a l i t ä t alles dessen erschienen ist, w a s ich m i t m e i n e n Augen

sehen

menschlichen

konnte") Freiheit

letter w a s

clearly

delineated

never posted.

Although

Goethe

G l e i c h z e i t i g e G l e i c h g e s i n n t e , " the Farbenkugel allied t o

in

Über

das

Wesen

der

( 1 8 0 9 ) , b u t he a p p a r e n t l y lost c o u r a g e , for the

the philosophy

claimed

Runge

as

"der

w a s m u c h m o r e closely

o f Schelling than t o the c o l o r

theory

of

Goethe.80 R u n g e ' s m o d e l f o r shaping, o r reshaping, p h e n o m e n a o f light and c o l o r w a s evolved, t h r o u g h Steffens' m e d i a t i o n , f r o m Schelling's der Weltseele

79 80

( 1 7 9 8 ) , Erster

Entwurf

eines Systems

der

Von

Naturphilosophie

Runge to Steffens (March 1809), HS, I, 147. Goethe's letter to Runge (18 Oct. 1809), HS, II, 388-389; Runge's letter to Goethe (1 Feb. 1810), HS, I, 180-181; Runge made two drafts of a letter to Schelling, but posted neither (1 Feb. 1810), HS, I, 156-160; a copy of Farbenkugel was sent to Schelling by Perthes, the publisher. In emphasizing comparative features in Runge, Schelling, and Goethe, I have neglected other attributes of the color theory as analyzed in Heinz Matile, Die Farbenlehre Philipp Otto Runges. Ein Beitrag zur Geschichte der Künstlerfarbenlehre (Bern, 1973). My commentary is also indebted to Kurt Grützmacher, Novalis and Philipp Otto Runge, Drei Zentralmotive und ihre Bedeutungssphäre: Die Blume, das Kind, das Licht (Munich: Eidos, 1964); Rudolf Bisanz, German Romanticism and Philipp Otto Runge, A Study in Nineteenth Century Art Theory and Iconography (DeKalb: Northern Illinois University Press, 1970); and Jörg Traeger, Philipp Otto Runge und sein Werk (Munich: Prestel-Verlag, 1975).

46

Goethe's Farbenlehre: The Newtonian Controversy

(1799), and Philosophie der Kunst (1802).81 The color sphere is a color wheel elaborated into three-dimensions in order to exhibit the physical or chemical colors in all the gradations of southerly nigrescence and northerly canescence. As such, it was intended to provide a practical service to the artist. Runge, however, also conceived the Farbenkugel as an organized representation of visual perception. As he explained to Steffens, "der Sinn des Gesichts" is constructed of "drey Erscheinungen, der Farbe, der Form und der Materie." The function of art is to raise perception to a consciousness of its own capacities, and ultimately to a conception of totality. Die Mahlerey ist, wie man sich auszudrücken pflegt, eine stumme Kunst. Das Universum ist für sie auf den Sinn des Gesichts beschränkt, und die Sichtbarkeit oder sichtbare Existenz der Dinge die allgemeinste Bedingung ihrer Würksamkeit. - Nehmen wir daher den Sinn des Gesichts als den einzigen an und abstrahiren von allen übrigen, so sind alsdann die drey Eigenschaften, Form, Farbe und Materie, die drey Grundformen aller menschlichen Erkenntniß, welche nur Eine Wurzel und Ursprung in dem ganzen Sinn des Gesichtes haben, in welchem alle als in ein absolutes sinnliches Erkenntnißvermögen zusammenfließen. 82

Schelling identified three powers in nature which contributed its spatial dimensions: magnetism is the linear force, electricity the angular, and galvanism the triangular. These three powers generate the cohesion of matter as well as the dynamic flux of energy. In their ceaseless movement, all three powers engaged the process of plus-minus polarity. In physical nature, this polarity can be identified in the oxydation/desoxydation of inorganic as well as organic forms; for plant and animal life, it is evident in the sensibility/irritability in the response to stimuli. The attendant powers in this construct of external nature Schelling equated with the powers which inform consciousness. Thus mind and nature are essentially identical. Light, as "ursprüngliche Bewegung," positive and negative pulsation of oxygen propagated through the aether, works upon the eye, the nervous system, to produce the sensation of visibility. 83

81

82 83

Schellings Werk ( = SW, with volume and page reference to the 1856-1861 Gesamtausgabe), 13 vols., ed. Manfred Schröter (Munich, 1927; reprint C . H . Beck, 1958). Because of his role in introducing Runge to Schelling's philosophy, I also draw from Steffen's essays in Schriften, Alt und Neu, 2 vols. (Breslau; Josef Max, 1821). Letter to Steffens (March 1809), HS, I, 149. O n the three powers and the spatial/temporal construct, Einleitung zu dem Entwurf eines Systems der Naturphilosophie, SW, III, 306-326; on the construction of light (Goethe's theory) and the construction of matter, Allgemeine Deduktion des dynamischen Prozesses (1800), SW, IV, 45-78; on the plus-minus polarity of light, Weltseele, SW, I, 465-473; on the polarity of physical nature, Weltseele, SW, I, 459-489; on the

Goethe's Farbenlehre:

The Newtonian Controversy

47

Because he was only concerned with visual perception, Runge limited his triadic construct of perception to "der Sinn des Gesichts." Only by understanding the relationship of "Form, Farbe und Materie" in the physiological response, the moment of sensation, can the artist proceed to an understanding of nature: wie wir die F o r m e n der menschlichen Gestalt erst dann in ihrem wahren Zusammenhange sehen, wenn wir die Anatomie und Physiognomie des Menschenkörpers begriffen haben, eben so sehen wir auch überhaupt erst in dem Maaße, wie wir die Erscheinung der F o r m , der Farbe und der Materie in ihrer lebendigen W i r k s a m k e i t auf einander und im Verhältniß zu einander erkennen; und nur dadurch kann es uns möglich werden, die Naturerscheinungen im Zusammenhange darzustellen. 84

The relationship of color, form, proportion, perspective, illumination must be derived from "die Gesetze, nach welchen die Gegenstände dem Auge sichtbar werden," not from "Erkenntnis der Körper oder ihrer Formen an und für sich" {Farbenkugel, §3). In adapting Schelling's concept of polarity in the propagation and perception of light, Runge also kept Schelling's discrimination of "Differenz" and "Indifferenz." Because nature is dynamic, the process of polarity is "fortwirkend"; the qualities of matter participate in a continual "Differenz." When the action of energy in matter is momentarily neutralized and brought into a balance, the condition is not an absolute homogeneity but only "ein Zustand der Indifferenz." 85 Runge placed this moment of neutrality at the dead-center of his color sphere. All hues and tones participate in "Differenz" ("eine Neigung, die allen diesen Punkten gemein ist"); only in the "Mittelpunkt" ist all activity suspended in "ein völlig gleichgültiges Grau": "so wie aus der gleichen Differenz eine vollkommene Indifferenz, in welcher alle individuellen Qualitäten sich aufgelöset haben und also nur die bloßen Quantitäten ihrer materialen Substanz in einer Summe übrigbleiben" (Farbenkugel, §§ 19-21). Although absolute unity is beyond "sinnliche Vorstellung," the perception of "Differenz," from one point in space to another, educates the eye to an "Ahnung" of the relation between the finite and the infinite, the visible and the invisible. The sense of harmony develops from "sinnliche Erkenntniß"

oxydation/desoxydation and sensibility/irritability of plant and animal life, Weltseele, SW, I, 5 4 6 - 5 6 9 . Steffens, "Beurtheilung dreier naturphilosophischer Schriften Schellings" (1800), Schriften, I, 3 - 6 6 ; "Schellingsche Naturphilosophie" (1805), Schriften, I, 8 5 - 1 1 4 . Steffens' contribution to the Farbenkugel, " Ü b e r die Bedeutung der Farben in der N a t u r , " draws from the plus-minus polarity of light, the oxydation/desoxydation process, and the experiments of Herschel and Ritter in photochemistry, Schriften, I, 5-35. 84 85

Letter to Steffens (March 1809), HS, I, 150. Erster Entwurf eines Systems der Naturphilosophie,

SW, III, 259.

48

Goethe's Farbenlehre:

The Newtonian Controversy

of quality and relationship. Harmony and disharmony are defined in terms of the spatial balance of polarity and "Differenz." "Indifferenz," because of its very passivity and neutrality, can serve to separate and absolve the visual conflict of disharmonious colors {Farbenkugel, Anhang).86 Goethe's Metamorphose der Pflanze und Steffens' "Über die Vegetation," no doubt contributed some share to Runge's "Blumensymbolik." 87 Schelling's Von der Weltseele more obviously corresponds to the spiritual organicism which Runge pictures in his "Lichtlilie." Accepting "Identität" of mind and nature, Runge interpreted a potential unio mystica in the action of light (as energy immanent in the material world) in visual perception (as the absorption or coincidence of the subject in the object). The "Doppelheit der Farben," their transparency and opacity, could engage the perceiver in either an etherial or a material world. The primary colors, red-yellow-blue, are in accord with the divine trinity. Although Runge refrained from symbolic interpretation in the Farbenkugel, his appropriation of the triadic construct and the polarities in Der kleine Morgen (1808) reveals how completely he had combined theory and practice. Light in this painting is thematically transformed, from the "allgemeine Standpunkt des Sehens" into the "Totalität des Verhältnisses." From the bottom of the frame the energy of the eclipsed sun is propagated by touch (like the life-giving touch in Michelangelo's Creation of Adam), as cherubs pass the force up through the vegetable world, the red amaryllis and the white lily, to the heavenly glory at the top; meanwhile that same energy seems to ascend from the child and radiate through the Madonna/Aurora into the transcendent "Lichtlilie." With a subtle alteration from the opaque to the transparent, Runge manipulates the transformation from a worldly to a spiritual perception of light. Joseph von Görres complained that Runge's "Schließen des Dreyecks i s t . . . kein natürliches, nur ein künstliches; es gilt für Pigmente, nicht für Farben." A similar complaint was lodged by Jens Baggesen, who was apparently upset because the "Farbenkugel" did not conform to the Newtonian laws of prismatic refraction.88 More strange, when Görres 86

87

88

Letter to Steffens (March 1809), HS, I, 151; Farbenkugel, in HS, 121-128; see also: "Uber Zusammenstellungen in Beziehung und Harmonie," HS, I, 131-141. Traeger, Runge und sein Werk, pp. 52-54; Grützmacher, Novalis und Runge, pp. 12-26. Horst Nägele, "Die Seifenblase ist eine wahre Farbenkugel..." Eine Kritik an Philipp Otto Runges Koordination der Farbtöne, vorgebracht von Jens Baggesen (Kiel, 1811/ 12), Jahrbuch des Freien deutschen Hochstifts, 1972 (Tübingen: Max Niemeyer Verlag, 1972, pp. 277-290. Baggesen may nit-pick, but his critique deserves to be pondered.

Goethe's Farbenlehre:

The Newtonian Controversy

49

learned that the artist had died (2 Dec. 1810), he sent an apologetic retraction with the absurd praise: "Newtons Optick hat unter allem, was ich im wissenschaftlichen Gebiete kenne, gerade die meiste Verwandtschaft mit seiner Weise." 89 Runge had once blamed Goethe for maligning Newton, yet not long after admitting to Goethe his ignorance of Newton's theory, he had entered the fray himself, denouncing the "Irrthümer..., welche durch Newton eine solche Autorität gewonnen, und welche die ganze Untersuchung in Verwirrung gebracht haben." In offering his color sphere as a spatial model of color perception, Runge waged no explicit charge against Newton. He merely lamented "wie hilflos den Künstler die aufgestellte Wissenschaft gelassen hat," and declared that the analysis of color based on perception "kann daher gesehen werden als ganz abgesondert von der Wissenschaft" (Farbenkugel, §§1, 4).,Q Runge, however much he may have wanted Goethe's extensive knowledge of the history of color theory, had a certain advantage in his modest claims: he attempted only to reveal the laws by which objects become visible to the eye; he neither refuted Newton, nor pretended to science. When Goethe took on the topics of totality and harmony, which Runge had based on the presumption that the mind orders its perception of color in accordance with an immediate sense ("Vorstellung") of relationship and a mediated sense ("Ahnung") of unity, he could appeal to no large model of perceptual organization. Instead, he relied on the same thesis of color-opposition that he had introduced in the "Physiologische Farben." Any specific color stimulates a kind of visual hunger for complementation. A red stimulus awakens the eye's desire to see green. Harmony, then, is predicated by the retinal process of "fordernde" and "geforderte" relationships. Totality, as an aesthetic concept, is an extension of the same law Goethe had identified in objective as well as subjective appearance of color. He recognized that

Had Runge merely mistaken "Höhe und Tiefe der Farben" for black and white polarity? Baggesen wanted to know whether the polar extremes, black and white, or light and darkness, were contained within the sphere of color or lay beyond it. He objected, too, that the three-dimensional sphere was only a mental construct which misappropriated "Phänomena der Oberfläche" into internal space. If the sphere is opaque, the "Farbnuancen" could not possibly penetrate let alone be distributed throughout the interior; if it is transparent, neither a dynamic nor an atomistic propagation could account for such a distribution. "Die Seifenblase ist eine wahre Farbenkugel"; Runge, he charged, had reshaped natural phenomena with a spurious fiction. 89

w

Görres to Runge (16 Sept. 1810), and Görres to Daniel Runge (7 June 1812), HS, II, 419, 439. Runge to Daniel Runge (13 Feb. 1803), HS, II, 201; I, 105, 107, 109.

50

Goethe's Farbenlehre: The Newtonian Controversy

color responses may be directed and reinforced among a people to the extent that any general aesthetics of color must acknowledge a certain historical and cultural relativism (Didaktik, §§833-847). Goethe assumed, nevertheless, a broad humanistic base in the same sort of "Streben" which he dramatized in the character of Faust. N o t wishing to be accused of "Schwärmerei," he treated but briefly the allegorical, symbolic, and mystical use of color (§§915-920). He began his commentary on the "Sinnlich-sittliche Wirkung" by summarizing salient attributes of colors derived from their physiological, physical, and chemical origin: yellow and blue arise in dioptric polarity, red is the prismatic Urfarbe present in the "Strahlungen" and "Steigerungen" of both polar opposites, green is the physiologically "geforderte Farbe" (§§ 765-802). The aesthetic response to colors and color combinations is instinctively acquired as the eye learns to see. Thus the eye delights in combinations of polar opposites (yellow/blue, red/green) and prefers progressive (yellow/green) to regressive (blue/green) combinations (§§816-829). After his conscientious effort to bridge the gap between physics and physiology, he readily engaged the thesis of "Taten und Leiden" in an account of visual perception in the arts. His familiarity with optical phenomena and the processes of perception may not have contributed as much insight into the techniques of the artists as might be expected from the original purpose he recollected in his "Confession des Verfassers." He tended to look at a painting first to discover its narrative or dramatic content, and only then to discuss the vantage of the beholder, the dimensions of time and space, and the light and color which contributed to the setting and exposition. Seldom did he address Kolorit as a primary attribute of composition. The Beiträge zur Optik, nevertheless, significantly informed the Propyläen essays (1798-1799) and evidence of the Farbenlehre is pervasive throughout the volumes of Kunst und Altertum (1816-1827).91 In spite of the patent absurdity of Brewster's image of Goethe invading the "sombre territory" of optics as an "unbidden minstrel" come to "set to music the abstractions of science," a label more apt than "unbidden minstrel" could scarcely have been accorded him by a contemporary physicist in the midst of the Newtonian controversy. The revolution in science was as radical as that in politics, and every bit as rapid and tumultous as De Quincey feared. Brougham's Newtonian conservatism may have been awesome in 1802, yet it had become

" Herbert von Einem, Beiträge zu Goethes Kunstauffassung (Hamburg, 1956), 11-23.

Goethe's Farbenlehre:

The Newtonian Controversy

51

pathetic and ridiculous in 1852.92 When Karl von Eckartshausen pub-

lished Die neuesten Entdeckungen

über Licht, Wärme und Feuer

(1798-1801) he could advocate that the Akademie der Wissenschaft accept his theory of an androgynous „Urstoff" which ultimately divided into matter and movement and generated "Lichtstoff," "Wärmestoff" and "Feuerstoff," the three principles of nature.93 Of course, at this very same time Schelling was proposing a nature, organic as well as inorganic, constructed out of the "drei Potenzen," magnetism, electricity, and galvanism. The program of the "Naturphilosophen" fell into disrepute. Richard Saumarez in Principles of Physiological and Physical Science (1812) failed to coerce physicists to take their place within the discipline of physiology; and Philipp Carl Hartmann in Der Geist des Menschen (1820) established no new school devoted to the study of physics as shaped by the physiology of thought.94 In 1834, when Georg Landgrebe assembled his compendium on light, the scientific research which he reviewed notably excluded all speculation on the corpuscular or undular nature of light, its identity as energy or matter. Landgrebe was concerned with the effects of light, especially recent research "welcher von den chemischen und physiologischen Wirkungen des Lichtes handelt."95 As is evident in the work of Hermann von Helmholtz and James Clerk Maxwell, studies in physics and physiology were not rent totally asunder. During the period from Charles Wheatstone to Hermann Lotze studies in visual perception progressed apace.96 But no one went back to Goethe's experiment with a prism to explain why the subjective experiment with the prism revealed a full array of color within the yellow band, or why Newton had erred in declaring all objects become red under "Rubrific" rays. Even though perception theory no longer confused color response with a specific stimulus of light, Edwin Land still managed to cause a sensation with his "Astonishing New Theory of Color." Land had found that he could turn a black-and-white photo-

T. S. Kuhn, The Structure of Scientific Revolutions (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1970), scientists working within different paradigms, "work in different worlds," pp. 24-26, 135, 150. Olson, Scottish Philosophy and British Physics, p. 224. " Karl von Eckartshausen, Die neuesten Entdeckungen über Licht, Wärme und Feuer, I. Bd., Heft 1, 1-62; Heft 2, 65-188; Heft 3, 1-60 (Munich: Joseph Lindauer, 1798, 1799, 1801). 94 Philipp Carl Hartmann, Der Geist des Menschen in seinen Verhältnissen zum physischen Leben, oder Grundzüge zu einer Physiologie des Denkens (Vienna: Carl Gerold, 1820). 95 D. Georg Landgrebe, Uber die chemischen und physiologischen Wirkungen des Lichtes (Marburg: N . G . Elwert, 1834). 96 William N. Denber, Visual Perception: The Nineteenth Century (New York: John Wiley & Sons, 1964). 92

52

Goethe's Farbenlehre:

The Newtonian Controversy

graph into a full color picture with colorless light plus any single color from Newton's spectrum. Goethe's priority was acknowledged in one sentence on "Farbige Schatten" in Francis Bello's report in Fortune (May, 1959); the reporter of Der Spiegel (August, 1959) gave Goethe a larger share of credit; and Gerhard Ott put the discovery in historical context in "Die Versuche von Land. Ansätze zu ihrer goetheanistischen Deutung." 97 At long last there was evidence forcing a re-examination of Goethe's subjective "Enthüllung" of Newton's Opticks. What Goethe meant in defining color as "Taten des Lichts, Taten und Leiden," has always been entangled in metonymy. The physical phenomenon and the physiological response may be intricately and inextricably bound together, but Goethe structured his examination of subjective, subjective-objective, and objective colors in order to show that the "Taten des Lichts" are repeated also as the "Taten des Auges," and that the "Leiden," too, belong to both. As he phrased in Elemente der entoptischen Farben (1817): "Was in der Atmosphäre vorgeht, begibt sich gleichfalls in des Menschen Auge." 98 Even after Werner Heisenberg explained how meaningless it had been to argue whether Newton was right and Goethe wrong, or vice versa, the debate has continued. In Heisenberg's words: „Die beiden Theorien handeln eben im Grunde von verschiedenen D i n g e n . . . von zwei ganz verschiedenen Schichten der Wirklichkeit." 99 After carefully sorting out physics, physiology, and psychology in Goethe's Farbenlehre, Andreas Wachsmuth nevertheless becomes ensnared in the metonymy of Taten und Leiden when he adds a final footnote to "Goethes Farbenlehre und ihre Bedeutung für seine Dichtung und Weltanschauung" (1959). Wachsmuth wants to acknowledge Edwin Land's discovery, about which he has read only after his essay was completed: Goethe aber erfährt dann die großartige Bestätigung, wie berechtigt er war, die "physiologischen Farben" an den Anfang seiner Farbenlehre zu setzen und sie als "Fundament" seiner Theorie zu erklären (Wachsmuth has this tribute to Goethe from "Zeitungsberichte," not from Land.) Zwar wird durch die ruhmvolle Ehrenrettung des Forschers und Denkers Goethe sein Irrtum nicht in Wahrheit verwandelt. Es bleibt dabei, daß die Farben nicht "Taten des Lichtes" sind. Aber hätte er die Behauptung gewagt: "Die Farben sind Taten des Auges," so könnte man in den jüngsten Entdekkungen, falls sie der Nachprüfung standhalten, einen glänzenden Beweis dafür sehen.100

97 98 99 100

See note 20 above. WA, II, Bd. 5, 293. Heisenberg, Wandlungen, pp. 85-106. Wachsmuth, "Goethes Farbenlehre und ihre Bedeutung für seine Dichtung und Weltanschauung," Goethe 21 (1959), 92.

Goethe's Farbenlehre:

The Newtonian Controversy

53

How entangling is the metonymy: if Land had concluded "Die Farben sind Taten des Auges," would he have attempted to photograph the illusion of color? The insistence, in his polemics against Newton, that the prismatic picture "immer nur ein werdendes und immer abänderliches bleibt" (Polemik, § 101), reveals an essential attribute to Goethe's "naturwissenschaftliches Denken." The author of Die Metamorphose der Pflanze found it natural to conceive of the very cosmos as organic, mechanically determined but also growing and becoming, not as Sein but as Werden. His polemic against the Opticks redressed Newton's failure to use his eyes, to rely on sensory response. In the "Didaktischer Theil," Goethe reverts from objective to subjective analysis. His very definitions are framed in the vocabulary of physiology. Taten und Leiden, in spite of the history of the métonymie confusion and misunderstanding, never meant for Goethe the same as Ursache und Wirkung.

II. Goethe's Entoptische Farben: The Problem of Polarity When Ludwig Tieck visited Samuel Taylor Coleridge at Highgate in June, 1817, their conversation certainly concerned matters literary, for Tieck had been busy at the British Museum collecting transcriptions for "his great W o r k on Shakespear." 1 As his letters reveal, however, Coleridge was much more excited by their discussion of the mysticism of Boehme and Tauler, the animal magnetism practiced by Wolfart, and the color theory of Goethe, topics that Coleridge found intimately conjoined through the principle of polarity. Digressing at length on Tieck's account of Schelling and Spinoza, the tetractys of t o θείον and Ό 6eós, Coleridge confesses that "these Tieckiana have seduced me from Mr. Tieck himself." 2 Goethe's Farbenlehre and his supplemental work on entoptics were discussed, as Coleridge makes evident in his letter to Tieck at Oxford (4 July 1817), under the same constellation of mystical and magnetic polarity: I am anxious to learn the specific Objections of the Mathematicians to Goethe's Farbenlehre, as far as it is an attack on the assumptions of Newton. To me, I confess, Newton's positions, first of a Ray of light, as a physical synodical Individuum, secondly, that 7 specific individua are co-existent (by what copula?) in this complex yet divisible Ray; thirdly, that the Prism is a mere mechanic Dissector of this Ray; and lastly, that Light, as the common result, is = confusion; have always, and years before I ever heard of Göthe, appeared monstrous FICTIONS! - and in this conviction I became perfectly indifferent, as to the forms of their geometrical Picturability. The assumption of the Thing, Light, where I can find nothing but visibility under certain conditions, was always a stumbling-block to me. Before my visit to Germany in September, 1798, I had adopted (probably from Behmen's Aurora, which I had conjured over at School) the idea, that Sound was = Light under the praepotence of Gravitation, and Color = Gravitation under the praepotence of Light: and I have never seen reason to change my faith in this respect.'

Clearly, Coleridge understood the grounds of Goethe's objections to Newton's Opticks (1704). If Tieck intended that Coleridge should consult Tauler's Helleuchtender Herzens und Andachts Spiegel (Jena,

1

2 3

Collected Letters of Samuel Taylor Coleridge, ed. Leslie Griggs (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1959), IV, 744-747; to John Hookham Frere, 27 June 1817. Letters, IV, 745. Letters, IV, 750-751.

Goethe's Entoptische Farben: The Problem of Polarity

55

1713), a collection of the fourteenth-century sermons which emphasized practical mysticism and the turn from the contemplative to the active life, he must have misunderstood Coleridge's search for a reconciliation of the natural and the divine in a theory of light which would be at once philosophically and scientifically tenable.4 This is what he sought in Boehme's Aurora and Goethe's Farbenlehre. Coleridge's annotations to Aurora, discussed in Ch. VII, reveal his attempt to bring Boehme into accord with the recent discoveries of Sir Humphry Davy in the field of electro- and photochemistry. In a marginal note to Lorenz Oken's Erste Ideen zur Theorie des Lichts (Jena, 1808), Coleridge asserts his desire to find "a clear and sober Confutation of Newton's Theory of Colors." Although he objects to "the exceeding unsatisfied state, in which Sir I. Newton's Book of Optics leaves my mind," he is not willing to countenance Oken's vigorous anti-Newtonian diatribe, "the rough Railing and d - n-youreyes-you-lie Ipsedixits." Oken claimed that Newton dealt "ganz gröblich" with diverse refrangibility; Newton's "fits of easy transmission" Oken called "abenteuerliche Einfalle"; Oken concluded "daß alles, was in Newtons Optik Theorem heißt, die absurdesten Hypothesen, die je ein Mensch ersonnen hat, in sich schließe."5 When Oken asserted that he would proceed "ganz ruhig" with his refutation, Coleridge noted his severe doubts: "Oken's mountebank Boasting and Threatening... alone makes me sceptical as to his ability to perform the promise." In his effort to confute Newton's theory of light and color, Oken fell far short of Goethe, who "attempted it in detail both by impeachment of Newton's experiments, and by Counter-experiments of his own," and even Goethe "had not succeeded in convincing or converting a single Mathematician." In a post script to this note, Coleridge added that "the full exhibition of another Theory adequate to the sum of the Phaenomena, and grounded on more safe and solid principles, would virtually be the best confutation."6 Barren of experiment, the theory 4

5

6

Johannes Tauler (1300-1361) was a follower of Meister Eckart. His prose makes abundant use of visual and visionary display in his attention to practical moral activity fulfilled through devotional receptivity to the divine. Although rich in light and color imagery, Tauler has none of the chemical interest evident in Boehme's Aurora; Werke, ed. F.Vetter (Straßburg, 1910). Lorenz Oken, Erste Ideen zur Theorie des Lichts, der Finsterniß, der Farben und der Wärme (Jena: Friedrich Frommann, 1808), pp. 10-11. Coleridge's marginalia to Oken from the copy in the British Museum, c. 44, g. 4. (1). A complete transcription will be available in the forthcoming volume of George Whalley, ed., The Collected Works of Samuel Taylor Coleridge, 12, Marginalia, III (Princeton: Princeton University Press). A partial transcription is in Roberta Florence Brinkley, Coleridge on the Seventeenth Century (Durham, N. C.: Duke University Press, 1955).

56

Goethe's Entoptische Farben: The Problem of Polarity

with which Oken claimed to disprove "Newtons Lehre" offered nothing more "safe and solid" than a fanciful exercise in "Polaritätsgedanken." When Oken explains the colors as resulting from the tension of black and white, Coleridge recognized Oken's unacknowledged debt especially to Goethe, but also to Schelling, and Steffens. Goethe, & then Schelling & Steffens, had opposed to the Newtonian Optics the ancient doctrine of Light and Shadow on the grand principle of Polarity - Yellow being the positive, Blue the negative, Pole, Red the Culmination and Green, the Indifference. Oken follows them - but stop ! He waits till they are out of sight - Hangs out a new Banner (i. e., metaphors) and becomes a Leader himself.

In charging Oken with a subterfuge of metaphors to disguise borrowed ideas, Coleridge might have been puzzled, had he considered the dates, about who follows and who leads. Oken's Erste Ideen zur Theorie des Lichts was written for his program on light at the University of Jena for Fall, 1808. Steffens' "Über die Bedeutung der Farben in der Natur" appeared with Runge's Farbenkugel in 1810. Although the printing of Goethe's Zur Farbenlehre had begun in 1806 and the "Didaktischer Theil" was finished in 1808, the polemical and historical sections were not published until 1810. Of course, Goethe's Beiträge zur Optik (1792-93), as well as Schelling's account of the propagation of light and production of color in Von der Weltseele (1798), had long been available. While Schelling's theory, and some parts of Goethe's, would have been known to Oken, it would seem that Oken had preceded Goethe in constructing a polemic against Newton, and, prior to Steffens, had related the generation of color to oxydation and magnetic polarity. But Steffens' mode of explanation, certainly in all the particulars relevant to Oken's Erste Ideen, merely extended what had already been posited by Schelling, Ritter, and Achim von Arnim. N o r can one lend credence to the possibility that Oken's polemic served as "Goethes Vorbild," for Goethe had already delivered significant portions of his polemic in lecture at Weimar. 7 Indeed, when Oken began to regret the lack of demonstration to support his Erste Ideen, he used Goethe's first experiment from the yet unpublished "Polemischer Theil" for his own essay, "Newtons erster Beweis für die verschiedene Brechbarkeit der Lichtstrahlen, wodurch die Verschiedenheit der Farben erzeugt werden soll."8

7

8

Hermann Bräuning-Oktavia, Oken und Goethe im Lichte neuer Quellen (Weimar: Arion Verlag, 1959), pp. 60-75. The influence of Oken's anti-Newtonian polemic on Goethe had been suggested in Günther Schmid, Goethe und die Naturwissenschaften. Eine Bibliographie (Halle, 1940), p. 328. Journal für die Chemie, Physik und Mineralogie, VIII, Heft 2 (1809), 269-277.

Goethe's Entoptische Farben: The Problem of Polarity

57

In spite of his large debt to Schelling and Goethe, Oken does develop a surprising and orginal theory of his own. Beginning with the sun as source of light, he argues that the solar system was created out of an explosion of the sun and that a magnetic polarity has been sustained between the sun, as positive pole, and each of the planets, as negative pole. The sun radiates light only along the magnetic line of radius. Light is the phenomenon which results from the magnetic tension, the "Spannungsprocess," in the aether between the sun and the orbiting planet: "Die Spannung des Aethers, (verursacht durch die Sonne, deren Fortleitung aber bedingt durch den Planeten,) erscheint als Licht." A network of such linear radiation links together the entire visible star system. Light is not matter, but tension; not the material vibration of the aether, but the rapid alternation of polarity. Light, however, does affect matter: where the "Spannungsprocess" enters the earth's atmosphere it causes the movement of "irdische Materien." The result is heat: "Wärme ist das bewegte Subject des Lichtes." Rather than arguing that fire causes light, Oken states that light causes fire: "Feuer ist die [irdische] Erscheinung des kosmischen Elementes." After discussing reflection and refraction, "Beugung des Lichtes," in terms of oxydation and desoxydation, he then explains color as "geänderte Lichtspannung." Matter slows down the rapid alternation of polarity. Color, therefore, is "träges, verfinstertes Licht." Oken offers a contrastive formulation: "Wie die Spannung des Aethers Licht ist, so ist die Spannung der Materie Farbe."9 Coleridge is quite right: Oken's Erste Ideen are recognizably the ideas of Schelling and Goethe under a "new Banner." While awaiting a "full exhibition of another Theory" which would answer his objections to Newton, Coleridge, as he claimed to Tieck, held to the formula of polarity with a tenacious "faith." Nevertheless, when he repeated the formula in a letter to C. A. Tulk just two months after his letter to Tieck, he replaced the equations of light/gravity and colour/sound, as derived from Boehme and Goethe, with a tetractys of light/gravity and electricity/magnetism. The bipolar model, as Coleridge drew it for Tulk,10 looks just like Schelling's "Construktion der einzelnen Potenzen der Natur" as determining the "vier Weltgegen-

' Erste Ideen, pp. 20-35. Letters, IV, 767-775 and 804-809; see also Coleridge, Hints towards the Formation of a More Comprehensive Theory of Life, ed. Seth Β. Watson (London, 1848), pp. 58, 59; the tetractys also informed Coleridge's dianoetics: "Notes on the Pilgrim's Progress," V, 256; Aids to Reflections, I, 218-219, in The Complete Works of S. T. Coleridge, 7 vols., ed. W . G . T . Shedd (New York: Harper, 1853).

10

58

Goethe's Entoptische Farben: The Problem of Polarity

den."11 Franz von Baader had also drawn such a construct in Über das pythagoräische Quadrat der Natur oder die vier Weltgegenden (1796). Oken made use of both Schelling and Baader in his Theorie der Sinne (1804).12 Although it is possible to point to the parallel in Goethe's comparison of "Tonlehre" and "Farbenlehre" in the 1810 edition,13 it was not until Goethe witnessed the bipolarity of the entoptic figure and saw the physical analog in Ernst Chladni's acoustic figures,14 that Goethe put aside the simple model of polarity that he had defended in the Farbenlehre and adopted the tetractys which he then presented in Elemente der entoptischen Farben (1817) and Entoptische Farben (1820). Schopenhauer, in Über das Sehen und die Farben (1816), insisted that Goethe's account of color opposition belonged to physiology rather than to physics. Goethe, at first, resented Schopenhauer's argument, but when he saw that Purkinje's drawings or retinal images appeared identical to the entoptic tetractys,15 he reconsidered his earlier disclaimer and acknowledged the physiological ground of his theory. The Entoptic Figure To be sure, the biaxial phenomena he beheld in the rhomboid crystal and the Bolognese bottle merely provided visual confirmation of that scheme of thought, largely Spinozan, which progressively informed Goethe's concern with ürphänomen. To Goethe's credit, he did not force the shape of his observations. Yet the zeal and enthusiasm with which he

11

"Propädeutik der Philosophie" (1804), in Schellings Werke, ed. Manfred Schröter (Munich: Beck und Oldenbourg, 1956), 2. Ergänzungsband, 242. Schelling had also described the bipolar construct in Von der Weltseele (1798), Erster Entwurf eines Systems der Naturphilosophie (1799), Einleitung zu dem Entwurf eines Systems (1799), and Darstellung meines Systems der Philosophie (1801), in Werke, I, 468, 527; II, 218, 258-259, 320-326; III, 40-108. M . H . Abrams, "Coleridge's Ά Light in Sound': Science, Metascience, and Poetic Imagination," Proceedings of the American Philosophical Soríety, CXVI, No. 6 (December, 1972), provides an excellent commentary on the relevance of Schelling to Coleridge's account of light and gravity as "the two elemental counter-powers that generate the cosmos."

12

Bräuning-Oktavio, p. 13. Goethes Werke, Abteilung II: Naturwissenschaftliche Schriften (Weimar: Hermann Böhlau, 1890-1897), Bd.I, 300-301; 348; §§747-748, 889-893. References to this edition will be abbreviated W A in subsequent notes. WA, II, Bd. 5, 295-296. Jan Purkinje, Beiträge zur Kenntniß des Sehens in subjectiver Hinsicht (Prague: J. G. Calve, 1819). In his review, Goethe relates his own play with retinal images and describes Purkinje's "Achtstrahl" as the kaleidoscope of the eye, WA, II, Bd. II, 269-284.

13

14 15

Goethe's Entoptische Farben: The Problem of Polarity

59

pursued the problem of polarized light is not difficult to understand. As he wrote to Hegel, whom he addressed as godfather of the entoptics, this new research had brought him to a reappraisal of his earlier work: "da ich, durch die neueste Bearbeitung der entoptischen Farben aufgeregt, meine altern chromatischen Akten wieder mustere und mich nicht erwehren kann, gar manches durch sorgfältige Redaktion einer öffentlichen Erscheinung näher zu führen" (13 April 1821).16 Goethe acknowledged Hegel as godfather of the entoptics because of his active part in the birth and christening, when Thomas Seebeck constructed his double-mirrored apparatus and "erblickte . . . in diesem am 21. Februar 1813 zum erstenmal die vollständigen entoptischen Figuren.'" 7 Together with a copy of his essay on entoptics in Zur Naturwissenschaft Überhaupt (Ì.Band, 3.Heft, 1820), Goethe sent to Hegel a letter of appreciation: "Sie haben in Nürnberg dem Hervortreten dieser schönen Entdeckung beigewohnt, Gevatterstelle übernommen und auch nachher geistreich anerkannt, was ich getan, um die Erscheinung auf ihre ersten Elemente zurückzuführen." 18 After his move from Nürnberg to Heidelberg, Hegel wrote his Enzyklopädie der philosophischen Wissenschaft (1817). Here he took the occasion to repeat the attack on Newton: "Über die Barbarei fürs erste der Vorstellung, daß auch beim Lichte nach der schlechtesten Reflexionsform der Zusammensetzung gegriffen worden ist, und das Helle hier sogar aus sieben Dunkelheiten bestehen soll, wie man das klare Wasser aus sieben Erdarten bestehen lassen könnte, kann man nicht stark genug ausdrücken." After summarizing Goethe's argument that color arises from the opposition of light and darkness, Hegel concludes: "Ein Hauptgrund, warum die ebenso klare als gründliche, auch sogar gelehrte Goethesche Beleuchtung dieser Finsternis im Lichte nicht eine wirksamere Aufnahme erlangt hat, ist ohne zweifei dieser, weil die Gedankenlosigkeit und Einfältigkeit, die man eingestehen sollte, gar zu groß ist."19 As Goethe himself explained the Newtonian "Fehler," the error had persisted because of the mechanistic presumptions of the "corpuscular" theory. Goethe's part in the Newtonian controversy was not motivated by the issue central to the debate over the Opticks, but by a larger

" Goethe-Hegel Briefwechsel, ed. Hermann Bauer (Stuttgart: Verlag Freies Geistesleben, 1970), p. 24. 17 Thomas Seebeck, "Geschichte der entoptischen Farben," in WA, II, Bd. 5, 229-238. 18 Goethe-Hegel, pp. 16-17. 19 Hegel, Enzyklopädie der philosophischen Wissenschaft (Heidelberg, 1817, 1827, 1830), in "Werke, ed. Eva Moldenhauer and Karl Markus Michel (Frankfurt/aM : Suhrkamp, 1970), IX, 246-248.

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G o e t h e ' s Entoptiscbe Farben: T h e P r o b l e m of Polarity

concern with the scientific method. The debate over Newton's Opticks was being waged by the proponents of the wave theory against Newton's contention that light was the rectilinear emission of corpuscular matter. The account of interference, in Thomas Young's Bakerian lecture to the Royal Society of London (12 November 1801), gave considerable strength to the argument against Newton's theory. It may seem strange, then, that Goethe did not take up the wave theory in his own case against Newton; or stranger still, that Goethe opposed the most convincing evidence being assembled by Young, W. H. Wollaston, Etienne Malus, and Augustin Fresnel.20 The wave theory, as it was being presented, Goethe considered flawed by the same mechanical presumption which he opposed in Newton's corpuscular theory. Goethe described the opposition of the matter based premises of Newton and the motion-based premises of Christian Huygens and Robert Hooke in the "Historischer Theil" of the Farbenlehre, but he also claimed that dynamism no less than atomism remained bound by a mechanical thesis : "Der Atomist wird alles aus Theilchen zusammengesetzt sehen und aus dem Dunkeln das Helle entspringen lassen, ohne im mindesten einen Widerspruch zu ahnen; der Dynamiker, wenn er von Bewegung spricht, bleibt immer noch materiell, denn es muß doch etwas da sein, was bewegt wird."21 In Goethe's definition, light not only existed independent of matter, it contributed the ordering motion to the material universe: light became the agency of the Urbewegung. The divine Word was the fiat lux. Thus his Faust, in translating "Wort" into "Sinn," into "Kraft," into "Tat" (11. 1224-1237) sought to resolve the riddle of the Johannine logos as the prime mover. In joining with Thomas Seebeck and Hegel to investigate the entoptic phenomena, Goethe did not attempt to take up the argument of the dynamists that polarized light demonstrated the interference of waves. As he described the phenomena in his poem "Entoptische Farben" (17 may 1817), the "Wundersame Spiegelungen" revealed a sign of the macrocosm: the tetractys.22 Although Goethe did not accept the fundamental issues in the debate between the atomists and the dynamists, the undular versus the corpus20

21 22

For a historical summary of the wave theory in opposition to Newtonian optics, see Vasco Ronchi, The Nature of Light, trans. V. Barocas (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1970), chs. V-VII, 159-259. For an analysis of the changes in terms of a neo-mechanism which turned from the dynamic corpuscularity of the eighteenth century to an emphasis on forces and energy, see Robert Schofield, Mechanism and Materialism, British Natural Philosophy in an Age of Reason (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1970), Ch. XI, pp. 277-297. W A , II, Bd. 5, 429, 433; see also Bd. 3, 116. Rupprecht Matthaei, Goethes Farbenlehre (Ravensburg: Otto Maier Verlag, 1971), p. 126.

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cular theory, he found in the entoptic phenomena evidence further substantiating his observations that color is produced by the opposition of light and darkness. As he recorded it in his "Konfession des Verfassers," the dioptric "Farbensäume" provided the first evidence for the emergence of color from the polarity of Licht and Finsternis. The violetblue and the red-yellow prismatic emissions from the ends of a black band on a white surface seemed physically kindred to the "Lichtenbergische Figuren," the radiations of iron-filings from the ends of a magnet. His early observations of colored shadows (1792), the blues and greens that appear in "rötliche Dämmerung," Goethe took as proof that the eye needed only light and darkness to stimulate sensations of color. The negative-positive inversion of after-images contributed additional support to his polarity thesis. To Newton's claim that one white light was separated into primary colors, no further change could be imposed, Goethe answered that it was Newton's mistake, "daß er nämlich das prismatische Bild als ein fertiges, unveränderliches ansieht, da es doch eigentlich immer nur ein werdendes und immer abänderliches bleibt" (Polemik, §§100-101). Goethe demonstrated, contrary to Newton's conclusion, that any color from Newton's spectrum, accompanied by normal daylight, would cast a shadow in complementary color and a full array of colors could be seen in the dioptric "Säume" of the shadow (Didaktik, §§ 62-80). In the contest of light and darkness, Goethe saw color as determined by brightness and contrast; his key terms were klar and trübe, hell and dunkel. Color is produced by the interaction: "Die Farben sind Taten des Lichtes, Taten und Leiden."23 It should be apparent, here, that Goethe's scheme is actually bipolar rather than polar. Indeed, Goethe himself represented it as such in his outline to the 1820 edition of the Farbenlehre. The entoptic figure now informed the scheme: the eye functions, "empfänglich und gegenwirkend," responsive to the "Taten und Leiden" of "Licht und Finsternis," the dynamic modality of energy, and "Weiß und Schwarz," the atomic substantiality of matter.24 25 24

"Vorwort," Zur Farbenlehre (1810); WA, II, Bd. 1, ix. "Tabellarische Übersicht der Farbenlehre" (1820); WA, II, Bd. 5, 319. Goethe added a note acknowledging the help specifically with the physiological colors: "Die physiologische Abtheilung ist genau nach meiner Farbenlehre schematisirt, doch dabei ist zu bemerken, daß die glücklichen Bemühungen des Herrn G. St. R. Schulz zu Berlin und des Herrn Pr. Purkinje zu Prag dieser Lehre abermalige Begründung, weitere Ausdehnung, genauere Bestimmung and frischen Glanz verliehen. Diese denkenden Beobachter führen solche immer tiefer in das Subjekt hinein, so daß aus dem Sinne des Sehens sich endlich die höchsten Geistes-Functionen entwickeln. Ich werde nicht verfehlen so treffliche Arbeiten auch von meiner Seite dankbar anerkennend zu benutzen," WA, II, Bd. 5, 405-406.

62

Goethe's Entoptische Farben: The Problem of Polarity

When Goethe first posited the polarity of the "Farbensäume," he was not merely indulging an analogy to magnetism. Johann Ritter conducted experiments together with Goethe on the galvanic polarity of color and shared with him the evidence of photochemical processes: violet occurs at the cold, hydrogen or positive pole, red at the hot, oxygen or negative pole.25 Schelling had incorporated Ritter's electro- and photochemical polarities into Baader's tetractys of the "vier Weltgegenden."26 Schelling's bipolar model served, in turn, as the source of tetractys as Coleridge presented it in his letters to Tieck and Tulk. Goethe, however, refrained from any discussion of the biaxial dimensions of color because bipolarity remained for him an Idee rather than an Erfahrung until the entoptic phenomena provided him with visible evidence. Even before Malus excited the interest in polarized light with his papers on reflection and double refraction ("Sur une propriété de la lumière réfléchie pars les corps diaphanes" 1809; "Théorie de la double refraction de la lumière dans les substances cristallines" 1810),27 Goethe had already formed a theory of polarity. When his correspondence with Seebeck brought him to the study of entoptics, he found that once again he had to war with the Newtonian "Fehler." That light passing through a rhomboid crystal of spar refracts in two directions was first described by Erasmus Bartolinus in 1669. Christian Huygens demonstrated that these rays could be shut off and then restored by rotating one of two superimposed crystals a quarter-turn (Traité de la lumière, 1690).28 Newton, who had already added an account of "fits" to his theory of "corpuscular emission" of light to explain why some light penetrated (refracted) and some light bounced off (reflected) a surface of water or glass, also had to provide his "corpuscles" with "sides" to explain why they were blocked by the turning of a crystal.25 Malus found that he could block the light with a single crystal and a mirror; he observed, as 25

26 27 28

29

WA, III, Bd. 3, 7-11. Goethe's Tagebuch lists frequent visits of Ritter between 23 February and 3 April 1801, and gives some account of their experiments. See also: Walter Wetzeis, Johann "Wilhelm Ritter: Physik im Wirkungsfeld der deutschen Romantik (Berlin: Walter de Gruyter, 1973), p. 334, 121-124; Carl von Klinkowstroem, "Goethe und Ritter "Jahrbuch der Goethe-Gesellschaft, VIII (1921), 135-151. Schelling, Werke, 2. Ergänzungsband, 242. Ronchi, Nature of Light, 232-234. The fifth chapter of Traité de la lumière Huygens devoted to the "réfraction marveilleuse" of rhomboid spar. Newton, Opticks: Or, a Treatise on the Reflections, Refractions, Inflections and Colours of Light (London: 1730, 4th ed.; reprinted by E . T . Whittaker, New York, 1931). For Newton's account of "fits of easy reflexion" and "fits of easy transmission" see Book II, Part 3, Proposition XIII; for the speculation on "sides," see Book III, Part I, Query 25 and Query 26.

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Farben: The Problem of Polarity

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well, that the double refracting crystal reversed the prismatic colors. The concept of "sides" was therefore augmented into a theory of polarity. U p o n learning of this new arena of optics, Goethe began his own series of experiments. H e dismissed the account of "Schwingungen" forwarded by the dynamists, and "Kügelchen polarisieren" is one of the Newtonian "Schwanke" he ridicules in the introductory "Streitgedicht" to Elemente der entoptischen Farben (1817).30 In the Farbenlehre Goethe had classified color phenomena into the subjective physiological colors, the objective chemical colors, and the subjective-objective physical colors. H e identified entoptics as subjective-objective, to be added to his earlier discussion of dioptric, catoptric, paroptic, and epoptic. Repeating his formula of Licht and Finsternis, he described the effects of entoptic color apparent in the turn of the crystal of spar: Finsternis und Licht stehen einander uranfänglich entgegen, eins dem andern ewig fremd; nur die Materie, die in und zwischen beide sich stellt, hat, wenn sie körperhaft undurchsichtig ist, eine beleuchtete und eine finstere Seite, bei schwachem Gegenlicht aber erzeugt sich erst der Schatten. Ist die Materie durchscheinend, so entwickelt sich in ihr im Helldunkeln, Trüben in bezug aufs Auge das, was wir Farbe nennen. Diese, sowie Hell und Dunkel, manifestiert sich überhaupt in polaren Gegensätzen. Sie können aufgehoben, neutralisiert, indifferenziert werden, so daß beide zu verschwinden scheinen; aber sie lassen sich auch umkehren, und diese U m w e n d u n g ist allgemein bei jeder Polarität die zarteste Sache von der Welt. Durch die mindeste Bedingung kann das Plus in Minus, das Minus in Plus verwandelt werden. Dasselbe gilt auch von den entoptischen Erscheinungen. Durch den geringsten Anlaß wird das weiße Kreuz in das schwarze, das schwarze in das weiße verwandelt und die begleitenden Farben gleichfalls in ihre geforderten Gegensätze umgekehrt. 3 1

The entoptic figure, as described by Goethe, is dominated by the appearance of a black or white cross with a halo of concentric colors, or "Pfauenaugen," in each of the four reticular spaces. With that "geringster Anlaß" which converts the black cross to white, the colors within the four halos reverse like the negative of a color photograph. Just as Goethe had compared the dioptric effect to the "Lichtenbergische Figuren," the entoptic decussation he likened to the "Chladnische Figuren," the patterns wrought in fine sand on glass plates set into vibration by sound. 32 Although he granted that the tetractys in both

30 31 32

W A , II, Bd. 5, 223. W A , II, Bd. 5, 244. W A , II, Bd. 5, 296-298. For a discussion of Goethe's interest in optical phenomena caused by "atmosphärische Meteore," see Günter H o p p e , "Goethes Ansichten über Meteorite und sein Verhältnis zu dem Physiker Chladni," Goethe, X C V (1978), 227-240.

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Goethe's Entoptische Farben: The Problem of Polarity

figures resulted from "Schwingungen," he did not accede to the wave theorists. The "Schwingungen" which produce the entoptic figure are in the matter, not in the energy. N o more than in positing the polarity of the "Farbensäume," did he now intend an idle analogy. For Goethe, the entoptic figure provided a practical demonstration of bipolarity. The coincidence of the black cross and the white cross, the subtle shift of the eye which transformed the one into the other, enabled him to identify the Urphaenomen as visibly copresent in the Phaenomen. As tetractys, the line of energy intersects with the line of matter, mode with substance, to το θείον with the Ό 9eós. The entoptic figure thus gave visual confirmation to that argument of Taten und Leiden which pervades Goethe's works. The active-passive, energy-matter, subjectobject dualism has apparent antecedent in Spinoza's account of the natura naturata / natura naturansThe course of Goethe's study of Spinoza evidently commenced about the time of his confession to Jacobi: Ich kann nicht sagen, daß ich jemals die Schriften dieses trefflichen Mannes in einer Folge gelesen habe, daß mir jemals das ganze Gebäude seiner Gedanken völlig überschaulich vor der Seele gestanden hätte. . . . Aber wenn ich hinein sehe, glaub ich ihn zu verstehen, das heißt: er ist mir nie sich selbst in Widerspruch, und ich kann für meine Sinnes- und Handelsweise sehr heilsame Einflüße daher nehmen. 34

Spinoza's argument that nothing is contingent, that all things are conditioned by divine nature, informed Goethe's account of the Urphänomen. He was quick to see the entoptic figure within the crystal as a model of the eye; indeed, he went so far as to declare an essential identity: "Was in der Atmosphäre vorgeht, begibt sich gleichfalls in des Menschen Auge, und der entoptische Gegensatz ist auch der physiologe." 35 Nevertheless, he was reluctant to claim the physiological basis of his theory. Yet it was precisely such optical/physiological coincidence that commanded the attention of Jan Purkinje and Johann Müller, and that has continued to direct research in color-relative reception and oculomotor physiology. Physiological Optics The great name in physiological optics is Hermann von Helmholtz: in his Handbuch der physiologischen Optik (1856—66) he revived from

33

34

35

Spinoza, Ethica, Proposition X X I X ; in Opera, ed. G. Gawlick, F.Niewöhner, K.Blumenstock (Darmstadt: Wissenschaftliche Buchgesellschaft, 1979-1980), II, 433. WA, II, Bd. 7, 62-64. Entoptische Farben, §29; WA, II, Bd. 5, 293.

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Thomas Young's Bakerian Lecture, "On the Theory of Light and Colours" (12 November 1801), the proposition that "The sensation of different colours depends on the different frequency of vibration excited by light on the retina," with the scholium that three color receptors are sufficient to account for color vision. Helmholtz delivered two lectures on Goethe's scientific pretensions. In the first, "Goethes naturwissenschaftliche Arbeiten" (1853), Helmholtz described Goethe as a misguided humanist who thought he must protect "die unmittelbare Wahrheit des sinnlichen Eindrucks gegen die Angriffe der Wissenschaft" ; his Farbenlehre celebrated "schöner Schein" and confounded poetic sensibility with scientific observation. In the second, perhaps more tolerant because delivered to a meeting of the Goethe-Gesellschaft, Helmholtz modestly praised "Goethes Vorahnung kommender naturwissenschaftlicher Ideen" (1892), with apologies for the mistakes which resulted from his "unvollkommene Apparate": because Goethe had "niemals vollständig gereinigtes, einfaches, farbiges Licht vor Augen gehabt," so Helmholtz explained, he "wollte deshalb nicht an seine Existenz glauben."36 Apparently Helmholtz forgot the celebration of "schöner Schein" and became muddled in the polarity of klar und trübe. The three-receptor theory of Young-Helmholtz, interestingly enough, has fared scarcely better than some of Goethe's tenets which Helmholtz scorned. Goethe anticipated the distinction between the additive and subtractive processes in separating subjective and objective colors and arguing that the mixture of colors, as objective, makes gray, not "Newtonisch Weiß" Colors share with gray a shading from Licht into Finsternis. In Goethe's bipolar scheme of 1820, tension produces color, submission grayness. It was such phenomena of tension that enabled Edwin Land to see color "spring" into superimposed black-andwhite photographs, prompting his investigation of "brightness ratios" as a correction to what he discovered "'wrong' with classical theory."57 Tension, too, explained the perception of color stimulated by the blackand-white patterns in D.M. McKay's experiments with interactive processes.38

36

37 38

Hermann von Helmholtz, Zwei Vorträge über Goethe, ed. Walter König (Braunschweig, 1917); "Goethes naturwissenschaftliche Arbeiten" (1853), "Goethes Vorahnung kommender naturwissenschaftlicher Ideen" (1892). See Ch. I, note 20. D. M. McKay, "Interactive Processes in Visual Perception," in Sensory Communication, ed. W. A. Rosenbluth (Cambridge, Mass: MIT Press, 1961).

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Goethe's Entoptische Farben: The Problem of Polarity

Goethe's own refusal to acknowledge the physiological ground of his theory provoked and perpetuated the long unsettled controversy. He might well have added his own name to his index of "Widersacher," published in the "Nachträge zur Farbenlehre" (1822), for he remained his own worst enemy. The vigor of his polemic against Newton was certainly an obstacle to any friendly endorsement of his ideas. The "Widersacher," after all had become more militantly embattled because of the new evidence being assembled supporting the wave theory against the Newtonian insistence on light as the rectilinear emission of "corpuscles." Nor could Goethe expect support from the anti-Newtonian advocates of the wave theory, for he had denounced both sides, dismissing undular as well as corpuscular propagation of light as materialistic. In spite of his polemical stance, Goethe gradually began to accumulate endorsement from a group of scientists, physiologists not physicist, who recognized in the meticulous and attentive account of the responsive eye the valuable contribution of Goethe's work on the "Taten und Leiden" of light in visual perception. Even this endorsement Goethe resisted. Convinced that he was right and Newton was wrong, Goethe tried to maintain his position in terms of physics, depreciating the import of the opening section, "Physiologische Farben" (Zur Farbenlehre, Didaktischer Theil, §§ 1-135) and vehemently denying that his whole theory was grounded in physiological optics. Written in 1821, but not published until 1824, Goethe's critique of Jan Purkinje's Beiträge zur Kenntnis des Sehens in subjektiver Hinsicht (Prag 1819) marked a significant turn in Goethe's appraisal of his own accomplishment. Although he recognized in Purkinje's work the extent of his own concern with the physiological basis of perception, Goethe remained hesitant, and cautious, in accepting the physiological evidence. Indeed, he still tried to correlate the physiological evidence with his own antiNewtonian position. The peculiarity of his critique of Purkinje lies in the strategy of selective criticism which Goethe blithely labeled "der löbliche Gebrauch." He described this strategy as a casual yet intellectually excited process of stimulus and response: "bedeutende Schriften gleich zum erstenmal in Gegenwart eines Schreibenden zu lesen und sogleich Auszüge mit Bemerkungen, wie sie im Geiste erregt wurden, flüchtig zu diktieren." Goethe's critique, however, is not as casual as he pretends. When examined in comparison with the whole of Purkinje's text, Goethe's excerpts can scarcely be deemed representative. His selection of excerpts, instead of epitomizing Purkinje's argument, has been arranged to correspond to his own discussion of physiological and physical color in the Farbenlehre, and the commentary on subjectiveobjective effects resorts to his appraisal of the atomist vs. dynamist

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67

debate as first set forth in his response to Schelling and Ritter. The critique consists of eighteen excerpts,39 totalling 850 words, and accompanied by Goethe's own commentary. More extensive quotation, Goethe explains, was not necessary "aus einer Schrift, die gegenwärtig in allen Händen ist." Goethe himself had contributed to the popularity of the work, which had at first only a modest circulation as a doctoral dissertation. The first edition of 1819 was followed by a second edition of 1823, shortly before his habilitation, De examine physiologico organi visus et systematis cutanei (Breslau, 1823). The subsequent extension of his research, Neue Beiträge zur Kenntnis des Sehens in subjektiver Hinsicht (Berlin, 1825), Purkinje dedicated to Goethe.40 Goethe quotes from the 1819 edition, but the second edition had already been published when Goethe's critique appeared in Zur Morphologie, Bd. 2, Heft 2 (1824). From the twenty-eight categories under which Purkinje ordered his observations on the subjective responses of the eye, Goethe attends to only five: "Lichtschattenfiguren" (Ch. I), "Druckfiguren" (Ch. III, "Blendungsfiguren" (Ch. XIV), "Doppelsehen" (Ch. XXV), and "Nachbilder" (Ch. XXVIII). While these fives correspond directly to categories Goethe had treated as "Physiologische Farben," his attention to Purkinje's text is directed by the larger theoretical considerations, prompted not only by the antagonism of the "Widersacher," but also by the criticism of Schopenhauer and Hegel. Following the publication of Farbenlehre in 1810, Goethe began his experiments in collaboration with Seebeck on the phenomena of polarized light. In January, 1813, he completed his first study of these phenomena, "Doppelbilder des rhombischen Kalkspats." From October, 1813, to May, 1814, he was assisted by Schopenhauer, who had come to Weimar to study color theory under his personal guidance. In 1815, Schopenhauer sent his mentor the manuscript based on this study of color theory. Goethe kept the manuscript for such a long time that Schopenhauer began to suspect Goethe's misgivings. After several letters begging the return of the document, Goethe apologized that he thought

" Zur Morphologie, II, 2. Heft (1824). Goethe includes excerpts from Purkinje, Beiträge zur Kenntniß des Sehens in suhjectiver Hinsicht (1819), pp. 7-11, 37-38, 43, 92, 103, 145, 149, and 166-170. For additional references to Purkinje, see: WA, II, Bd. 5, 405-406; Bd. 52, 379, 388-389, 396-398. 40 R.H. Kahn, "Aus Goethes Purkinje-Zeit," Lotos, L X X X (1932), 38; E.Witte, "Die Berufung Purkinje's nach Breslau," Anatomische Anzeige, XCII (1941-42), 68-77; Vladislav Kruta, "J.E. Purkinje - der Gelehrte und sein Schaffen," in Jan Evangelista Purkinje (Prague, 1962), 11-114.

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Goethe's Entoptiscbe Farben: The Problem of Polarity

it best to review the work with Seebeck. "When Schopenhauer brought out this study, Über das Sehn und die Farben (1816), Goethe wrote to Christopher F. L. Schultz in Berlin that he had been betrayed by his own disciple.41 Schopenhauer, when he prepared a revised edition of Uber aas Sehn (1854), fully acknowledged his debt to Goethe and insisted, in spite of Goethe's disavowal, that he had always held "die Fahne der Goetheschen Farbenlehre hoch empor." The disagreement with Goethe drew from Schopenhauer's revision of the theory: "Die physiologischen Farben, welche mein Ausgangspunkt sind, legt er [Goethe] als ein abgeschlossenes, für sich bestehendes Phänomen dar, ohne auch nur zu versuchen, sie mit den physischen, seinem Hauptthema, in Verbindung zu bringen."42 Goethe had begun his second section, "Physische Farben," with the distinction that, because their appearance depended on "gewisse materielle Mittel," it was necessary to ascribe a degree of objectivity: "Sie schließen sich unmittelbar an die physiologischen an und scheinen nur um einen geringen Grad mehr Realität zu haben."43 In Goethe's division, the physiological colors are subjective, the chemical colors are objective, and the physical colors derive from subjectiveobjective interaction. Schopenhauer begins with the physiological evidence that color is a specific response of the retina and proceeds to demonstrate that all of Goethe's Farbenlehre ought to be comprehended under the first heading, "Physiologische Farben," because the objectively mediated light which produced the "Physische Farben," as well as the material pigments that reflected the "Chemische Farben," all depended on the subjective response of the retina for their sensory interpretation as color. Schopenhauer identified but two points on which he departed from Goethe's theory: "nämlich im Betreff der wahren Polarität der Farben, . . . und hinsichtlich der Herstellung des Weissen aus Farben."44 Schopenhauer identified black as zero retinal activity, white as full retinal activity. From Goethe's observations on the color polarity of after-images, he then developed a scheme for the perception of color, and complementary after-image, as fractions or retinal stimulation:

41

42 43 44

Schopenhauer, Sämtliche Werke, ed. Rudolf Steiner (Stuttgart: Cotta, 1923), XII, 14-15; in the revised version of Über das Sehn und die Farben (1854), Schopenhauer quoted from Düntzer's edition of Goethes Briefwechsel mit C.F. L. Schultz (1853), p. 149, the letter to Schultz (19 July 1816). Schopenhauer, Werke, XII, 12. WA, II, Bd. 1, 57-58, §§ 136, 137. Schopenhauer, Werke, XII, 90.

Goethe's Entoptische Farben: The Problem of Polarity

Schwarz 0

Violett 1/4

Blau 1/3

Grün 1/2

Rot 1/2

Orange 2/3

Gelb 3/4

69 Weiß 1

"Die volle Thätigkeit der Retina" is divided here into complementary fractions in a harmonic octave of "Farbenpaaren." The gradation of possible pairs on such a scale is infinite, but any given color will determine its own polar complement (as after-image). Further, the sum of any "Farbenpaar," violet plus yellow (1/4 + 3/4), for example, is white (= 1); that is, the combined activity of the polar complements produces the same effect on the retina as white light.45 As the ophthalmologist Dr. Karl Wessely explained, Schopenhauer's revision of Goethe's theory provided for its continuing scientific relevance. Writing in 1922, Wessely saw its perpetuation in Ewald Hering's "Gegenfarbentheorie": die in ihrem Grundprinzip über den engeren Rahmen der physiologischen Optik hinaus für unser gesamtes biologisches und psychologisches Denken immer mehr bestimmend gewordene Lehre Ewald Herings, die in den 3 Farbpaaren Schwarz-Weiss, Rot-Grün und Blau-Gelb, aus denen der Kreis der tonfreien und getönten Farben mit allen ihren Übergängen sich erzeugt, Äußerungen und Stoffwechseltätigkeiten der Sehsubstanz erblickt, die sich jeweils mit Dissimilation und Assimilation gegenüberstehen.46

The second of Schopenhauer's two points of difference, "die Herstellung des Weissen aus Farben," disturbed Goethe more; for this, Schopenhauer confessed, Goethe "[hat] mir nie verziehen, jedoch auch nie, weder mündlich noch brieflich, nur irgend ein Argument dagegen vorgebracht." 47 A counter-argument, on subjective grounds, was no easy matter. Against Newton, Goethe had insisted upon the absurdity of concluding that all colors were contained in white. Since color was the shading from light into darkness, Goethe had argued that color arose in a "trübes Mittel." Spinning a color-wheel produced a "trübe" grey, not "newtonisch Weiß," Goethe declared in his "Spott-Gedicht" on the "Widersacher" Mollweide. In his formulae for polar complementation,

45 46

47

Schopenhauer, Werke, XII, 43. Karl Wessely, Goethes und Schopenhauers Stellung in der Geschichte der Lehre von den Gesichtsempfindungen (Berlin: Julius Springer, 1922), p. 12. See also: Gerald S. Wasserman, Color Vision: An Historical Introduction (New York and Toronto: John Wiley & Sons, 1978), pp. 88, 110. Schopenhauer, Werke, XII, 90.

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Goethe's Entoptische Farben: The Problem of Polarity

Schopenhauer explained, "daß die Ursache der Helle in einer gegebenen Farbe gerade die Ursache des Schattigen, in ihrem Komplement sei." Schopenhauer, then, redefined Goethe's "Urphänomen": Eigentliches Urphänomen ist allein die organische Fähigkeit der Retina, ihre Nerventhätigkeit in zwei qualitativ entgegengesetzte, bald gleiche, bald ungleiche Hälften auseinandergehn und successiv hervortreten zu lassen.48

Hegel was guided by a different set of interests when he began to study color theory with Goethe. Although Hegel gave the master no cause at all to complain of betrayal, Goethe could make little use of Hegel's interpretation of the "Urphänomen," nor of his enthusiastic defense of Goethe's contention that color arises from the opposition of light and darkness, that "Farben sind Taten des Lichtes, Taten und Leiden." Hegel, of course, appropriated Goethe's theory so completely into the dialectics of his phenomenology that it remained for Goethe's purposes inapplicable. Together with Goethe and Seebeck in Nürnberg, Hegel participated in the entoptic experiments with polarized light. When Goethe sent Hegel a copy of Elemente der entoptischen Farben (1817), he expressly thanked him for his assistance: so willkommene als entschiedene Art, sich zu Gunsten der uralten, nur von mir aufs Neue vorgetragenen Farbenlehre zu erklären, fordert meinen aufrichtigsten Dank doppelt und dreifach, da mein Entschluß, über diese Gegenstände mich wieder öffentlich vernehmen zu lassen, sich nach Freunden und Teilnehmern umsieht (8 July 1817). 49

He had no difficulty in recognizing in Hegel a "Freund und Teilnehmer," because Hegel in the exposition of light in Enzyklopädie der philosophischen Wissenschaften (1817) had taken Goethe's side against Schopenhauer by reaffirming the subjective-objective moment of Goethe's "Physische Farben." What Goethe feared in Schopenhauer's charge of the physiological exclusiveness of the entire Farbenlehre was the solipsism of utter subjectivity. Hegel easily obviated such difficulty by exercising Goethe's theory of light and color within his scheme of Differenz: Sein for Hegel always impinges on Anders-Sein. Hegel defines physics in terms of three constituent concerns: (1) "allgemeine Individualität," that is, the "Fiir-sich-sein" of physical identity, the object or "Körper" generically conceived; (2) "besondere Individualität," the "In-sich-sein" or specific entity, "die Elemente" distinguished from totality; (3) "freie Individualität," the "An-und-fürsich-sein" of process through which the individuality comes into being, 48 49

Schopenhauer, Werke, XII, 80. Goethe-Hegel, p. 12.

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the intrinsic moment of process "für ein Anderes zu sein." In Hegel's summary: Zuerst sind die Formunterschiede beziehungslos und selbständig gegeneinander; das Zweite ist die Individualität in der Differenz, im Gegensatz; erst das Dritte ist die Individualität als die Herrin über die Formunterschiede.50

In terms of "allgemeine Individualität," light could be posited as abstraction, a star; as "besondere Individualität," it would become a specific entity, the Sun. The third consideration arises "Wenn die Materie als Licht in das Sein-fiir Anderes tritt, also anfängt sich zu manifestieren."51 Only in this third concern "Verhältnis zum Licht," can physics deal with such matters as modification of light and appearance of color. Yet here physics becomes joined to physiology: Die Farben sind so zum Teil ganz subjektiv, vom Auge hingezaubert, - eine Wirksamkeit einer Helligkeit oder Finsternis und eine Modifikation ihres Verhältnisses im Auge; wozu jedoch allerdings auch eine äußere Helligkeit gehört.52

By insisting on the "Anders-Sein" of light in the perception of color, Hegel maintains a subject-object dialectic in which the physics are as important as the physiological explanation. Thus he agrees with Goethe that Newton had erred in prescinding the one from the other. With Goethe, too, he affirms, against Newton, the phenomena of color as shading of light into darkness: "Man muß sich an das Goethesche Urphänomen halten."53 Although he was grateful for the support Hegel provided him, Goethe found no way in his experiments to derive a convincing demonstration from Hegel's triadic scheme. Not until he read Purkinje's Beiträge zur Kenntnis des Sehens in subjektiver Hinsicht did Goethe find precisely the argument he needed to answer Schopenhauer. From the introduction, he excerpts Purkinje's statement on the corroboration of subjective and objective evidence: Jeder Sinn kann durch Beobachtung und Experimente sowohl in seinem Eigenleben, als in seiner eigentümlichen Reaktion gegen die Außenwelt aufgefaßt und dargestellt werden, jeder ist gewissermaßen ein Individuum; daher die Specificität, das zugleich Fremde und Eigene in den Empfindungen.54

The Hegelian vocabulary is obvious in Goethe's commentary to this text: 50 51 51 53 54

Hegel, Werke, IX, Hegel, Werke, IX, Hegel, Werke, IX, Hegel, Werke, IX, Purkinje, Beiträge

111, §273. 112. 227, §317. 246, 262, § 320. (1819), p. 7.

72

Goethe's Entoptische Farben: T h e P r o b l e m of Polarity Das Anerkennen eines Neben-, Mit- und Ineinander-Seins und Wirkens verwandter lebendiger Wesen, leitet uns bei jeder Betrachtung des Organismus und erleuchtet den Stufenweg vom Unvollkommenen zum Vollkommenen.55

In Hegel's objective idealism Goethe encountered the subjective defined in the dialectic process "vom Unvollkommenen zum Vollkommenen," as "sich selbst erzeugender, fortleitender und in sich zurückgehender Gang." 56 In Hegel's theory of light, the subjective was manifest as the moment of perception "in die Besonderheit der Empfindung." 57 In Purkinje, Goethe discovered physiological confirmation of the objectivity of the subjective. It was no longer necessary to apologize for the subjective "as Täuschung und Gebrechen." Although he repudiated such words as "Scheinfarben, Augentäuschungen und Gesichtsbetrug" in introducing the "Physiologische Farben" and rejected the terminology, "colores apparentes, fluxi, fugitivi, phantastici, falsi, variantes," applied to the "Physische Farben" by an earlier generation of "Naturforscher," he still had recourse to no more determinate a language of classification and could do little better than insist that the physical colors "scheinen nur um einen geringen Grad mehr Realität zu haben." 58 Purkinje developed a determinate classification: he explored retinal images more thoroughly than anyone before him, and he classified the basic patterns, with primary and secondary figures, in an array of twenty-eight variations. Goethe was so impressed with Purkinje's classification that he sought to provide a substantiating corroboration. He called on K. A. Schwerdgeburth, "unser geschickter und geübter Kupferstecher," to engrave his own retinal images upon repeating Purkinje's experiments. Because some of these experiments involved prolonged pressure on the eyes and the application of eletrodes to the conjunctiva, Schwerdgeburth was frightened, "als ob das einem jeden und ihm besonders höchst werte Organ dadurch gefährdet sei." Goethe, however, persuaded him to perform the less exacerbating of Purkinje's experiments: Nun aber nahm er teil an den beruhigenden Purkinjeschen Erfahrungen, er zeichnete die Phänomene, wie sie ihm gewöhnlich vorschweben. Ich habe das Blatt zu gelegentlicher Vergleichung der Purkinjeschen Tafel beigesellt.5'

55 56 57 5S 59

W A , II, Bd. 11, 270. Hegel, Werke, III, 61. Hegel, Werke, X , 160. WA, II, Bd. 1, 1-2, 57-58, §§ 1-2, 136-138. WA, II, Bd. 11, 274.

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73

The retinal images produced by Purkinje's first order of experiments are described as "Lichtschattenfiguren." Goethe appropriated the evidence as confirmation of his own theory: Auch wir betrachten Licht und Finsternis als den Grund aller Chromagenesie, sind überzeugt, daß alles, was innen ist, auch außen sei, und daß nur ein Zusammentreffen beider Wesenheiten als Wahrheit gelten dürfe. 60

Goethe quotes Purkinje's account of his first experiment. With eye-lids closed, he directly faces the bright sun and creates a flickering of light and shadow by waving his outspread fingers rapidly before his eyes. Purkinje described four basic "Lichtschattenfiguren" produced by this stimulation of the retina through closed eyes: "Achtstrahl," "Schachbrett," "Schneckenrechteck," "Schneckendreieck." The accompanying drawings he explains in terms of primary and secondary characteristics. The second set of experiments cause "Druckfiguren": these are created by pressing the finger against the eye through the closed eyelid. The first of these figures is produced with slight pressure applied directly over the cornea; the next two figures are the successive images under sustained pressure; then come four after-images when pressure is released and the image is restimulated by quickly opening and closing the eyelid. These are followed by a series of images produced by strong and sustained pressure. Chapters II and III, devoted to the "Druckfiguren," close with Purkinje's "Erklärungsversuch." This is a section from which Goethe again quotes at length. Purkinje drew analogically from Chladni's "Klangfiguren," patterns produced by sand on a plate set to vibration by sound waves. Purkinje explained Chladni's "Würfelfelder" and "die aus ihrer wechselseitigen Beschränkung entstehenden Linien" as parallel to the primary and secondary "Gestaltungen" of the retinal figures. In his commentary, Goethe approved the analogy with expressed delight, "so freuen wir uns gar sehr," because he had employed the very same analogy in Die entoptischen Farben (1820), drawing parallels between the "Klangfiguren" and the "entoptische Figuren."61 Goethe takes advantage of Purkinje's analogy to add it to his own observation on the entoptic phenomena: Wagen wir noch einen Schritt und sprechen: das entoptische Glas, welches wir ja auch als Linse darstellen können, vergleicht sich dem Auge; es ist ein fein-getrübtes Wesen, sensibel für direkten und obliquen Widerschein, und zugleich für die zartesten Ubergänge empfindlich. Die Achtfigur im Auge deutet auf das Ähnliche; sie zeigt ein organisches Kreuz, welches hervorzubringen Hell und Dunkel abwechseln müssen. 62

60 61 62

W A , II, Bd. 11, 273. W A , II, Bd. 5, 2 9 4 - 2 9 6 . W A , II, Bd. 11, 277.

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Goethe's Entoptische Farben: The Problem of Polarity

Goethe had already claimed that the entoptic glass provided a proper analogue for understanding the eye. Thus in the poem on "Entoptische Farben," addressed to Julie, Countess of Egloffstein (17 May 1817), he affirmed "Aug in Auge sieht dergleichen / Wundersame Spiegelungen." When he adds to Purkinje's analogy of the "organisches Kreuz" and the "Chladnische Figur" his own observation on the "Kreuz" and "Pfauenaugen" seen in the entoptic glass, he now can claim that the eye itself is entoptic, "ein fein-getriibtes Wesen" that functions with its own "trübes Mittel." Goethe proceeded to assemble three separate passages, from pages 43, 92, and 103, for his next commentary. From the book that was "in alien Händen," we can construct the missing context. The first quotation, also drawn from the "Erklärungsversuch" at the end of Ch. III, explains retinal response in terms of periodicity, "so daß auch bei einer scheinbaren äusseren Ruhe dennoch die innigste Bewegung in und zwischen den Begränzungspunkten statt finden kann." Purkinje conducted a series of time experiments with a candle: he described the images retained after 12 seconds exposure, then after 60 seconds exposure. Purkinje's discussion of the elasticity of the eye and the oscillation of the nerve receptors carries the analogical concern with "Wellenphänomen" into more detailed inquiry into the physiology of nerve response which Purkinje develops in Ch. IV on "die galvanischen Lichterscheinungen." The presumption, here, was that nerve cells operated as tiny galvanic batteries. The application of electrodes from a large galvanic battery simply stimulated the charge and interaction within these nerve receptors so that Purkinje could observe their response. Figure 15, a "schwarzer Bogenstreifen" within a "hellvioletter Schein," was stimulated with one electrode in the mouth, the other on the forehead (the twenty copper and zinc plates of Purkinje's voltaic pile probably provided no more than 10 to 15 volts). In Figure 16, he shows how the "Bogenstreifen" moved in response to the changed position of the second electrode from forehead to a corner of the eye. The galvanic stimulus also reveals dark spots as the papille which Purkinje identifies as the "Eintrittsstelle des Gesichtsnerven," as well as the "Aderfiguren" (Figures 23 and 24) which he studies in Chapter XIII. The "Wandelnde Nebelstreifen" (Figures 17, 18, 19), studied in Chapter V, Purkinje presents as evidence of the continuing physiological activity of the eye in complete darkness with no apparent external stimulus. Chapter VI studies the sympathetic response of one eye, closed and shielded, to the retinal activity of the other eye, exposed to light. Chapters VIII through XI describe a series of experiments for studying "der blinde Fleck." But Goethe passed over these chapters.

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To Purkinje's statement on periodicity (Ch. III), which Goethe excerpted only to reinforce his idea of "Taten und Leiden" in the response to "Licht und Finsternis," Goethe added two quotations on "Blendungsbilder" (Ch. XIV). 63 In the first Purkinje affirms "daß einer jeden Modifikation des Subjektiven innerhalb der Sinnensphäre jedesmal eine im Objektiven entspreche." To Purkinje's definition of the senses as "die feinsten und erregbarsten Messer und Reagenten der ihnen gehörigen Qualitäten und Verhältnisse der Materie," Goethe adds his emphatic declaration, "Hört!" The physiologist, Purkinje insists, examines subjective phenomena as demonstrative of "die Gesetze der materiellen W e l t . . . wie der Physiker äusserlich durch mannigfaltigen Apparat." Goethe takes this as justification of his subjective-objective definition of "Physische Farben." Here were grounds for a rebuttal against Schopenhauer. When Purkinje subsequently declares, "das Blendungsbild verhält sich gegen das äußere Licht wie ein trübes Mittel, was aber in gehöriger Finsternis selbst leuchtend ist," Goethe recognizes his own "Urphänomen," the confirmation of the "trübes Mittel" as physiological phenomenon. He refers modestly to his own account of "Blendungsbilder," "was ich hierüber in meinem Entwurf der Farbenlehre... umständlich angezeigt habe." Skipping over the next ten chapters, which study the alteration in afterimages of geometric patterns, parallel lines, curves, angles (Chs. XV-XVII), and images produced by eye movement, focus, tear fluid, and, again, pressure on the eye (Chs. X V I I I - X X I V ) , Goethe pauses at the beginning of Ch. X X V , "Einheit beider Gesichtsfelder. Doppelsehen," to introduce several experiments of his own, but also to supplement Purkinje's explanation with his own account of stereoptic vision as "konsequente Bildung des Subjekts zum Objekt." Goethe then turns to Ch. XXVIII, "Das Nachbild," Purkinje's final chapter, and excerpts five passages. Goethe uses these passages to emphasize the "Bildung" of the eye. Elsewhere in his excerpts, Goethe had tampered, lightly and benevolently, with Purkinje's text, correcting punctuation, amending pronoun reference and awkward subordination (e. g., Purkinje: "wo sie dann erst steht"; Goethe: "erst dann wird sie stehen"). His tampering with the conclusion, however, suppresses part of Purkinje's statement and distorts, radically and ironically, the meaning. Goethe had already pointed out that the eye could be educated to bring afterimages into conscious awareness: he cites in Farbenlehre an example from Faust: Wagner's uneducated eye fails to see the afterimage of the black dog's racing spiral, which to Faust's eye appears as a ö

Purkinje, Beiträge (1819), pp. 43, 92, 103.

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"Feuerstrudel." The "Gedächtnis des Gesichtsinnes" Purkinje associates with the power of the imagination: Goethe fully endorses this idea. Goethe had noted both the education and volition of the eye in perceiving afterimages; he quotes from Purkinje evidence for an even stronger case than he had made in Farbenlehre. Purkinje conducted experiments to demonstrate the willful control of afterimages, how they might be abjured and conjured in the eye. Here is evidence of "Wille und Vorstellung" contrary to Schopenhauer's argument on physiological response. Further, Purkinje gathered abundant evidence of the "topisirende Thätigkeit" of the eye: retinal images projected onto a blank surface, or even into the midst of a varigated scene. Goethe sought to enlist the "willkürliches Bild" and the "gebildetes Auge" as accomplishments special to the imaginative power. As he stated in his commentary, "Von der Produktivität solcher innern, vor die Augen gerufenen Bilder bliebe mir manches zu erzählen." H e proceeds to tell of his own gift of conjuring flower shapes "in der Mitte des Sehorgans." In a darkened room, or with closed eyelids, he would playfully manipulate these "Achtstrahl" patterns as the eye's own kaleidoscope. H e not only agrees with Purkinje in associating afterimages with the imagination, he insists that the capacity to retain and manipulate "Nachbilder" is necessary to artistic and poetic genius. Thus he confirms with enthusiasm the results of Purkinje's experiments: hier tritt hervor, was Herr Purkinje so anregt. Hier ist die Erscheinung des Nachbildes, Gedächtnis, produktive Einbildungskraft, Begriff und Idee alles auf einmal im Spiel.

Indeed, he felt self-justified in formulating this capacity in a directly proportionate ration: "Je grösser das Talent, je entschiedener bildet sich gleich anfangs das zu produzierende Bild." However, in excerpting from Purkinje support for such an argument, he has deleted some of the text. N o elliptical marks reveal the omission. Goethe quotes Purkinje's contrast between "Nachbilder" and "Blendungsbilder": Besonders lebhaft ist das Nachbild bei erhöhter Seelenthätigkeit, das Blendungsbild hingegen pflegt bei nervöser Stimmung in asthenischem Zustande länger nachzuhalten.

For Purkinje the "erhöhte Seelenthätigkeit" was not directly applied to artistic inspiration; Purkinje had actually written: Besonders lebhaft ist das Nachbild bei erhöhter Seelenthätigkeit nach Genuß geistiger Getränke oder narkotischer Substanzen, oder bei besonderem Interesse am Gegenstande; bei fieberhafter Aufregung des Blutes, besonders bei Hirnaffektionen ist es oft bis zu einer unvertilgbaren Objectivität gesteigert. Das Blendungsbild hingegen.. , M

64

WA, II, Bd. 11, 281; Purkinje, Beiträge (1819), p. 168.

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Farben:

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In Purkinje's research, Goethe discovered the physical objectivity of physiological subjectivism. He found a defense against Schopenhauer's criticism and reconciled himself to his own physiologically based theory. Through his "löblicher Gebrauch" of Purkinje's text, he once more appropriated the powers of perception into the exaltation of the artistic consciousness. Goethe received further endorsement and substantiation in Purkinje's

Neue Beiträge zur Kenntnifl des Sehens in subjektiver Hinsicht (Berlin,

1825), dedicated to Goethe. Here, Goethe's idea of grey as das Leidende, the passive or submissive surrender of light to darkness, is reformulated in terms still cited by physiologists as the "Purkinje effect." 65 At twilight, slower nighttime (scotopic) vision, utilizing the cones around the fovea centralis, begins to take over for the faster daytime (photopic) vision, keenest in the rods in the middle of th e fovea centralis. Because nighttime sight is less color sensitive, the passive greys replace the active colors: red turns to black, orange darkens, green and blue appear as lighter grey. Where color is still perceived, it seems to flicker, and because nighttime vision is slower, the eye may see the same image twice at twilight. Although the disjuncture in the retinal response is minute, the "flash" is startlingly perceptible. Coleridge recorded the perception at the close of his poem "Shurton Bars" (1975): "in Summer's evening hour / Flashes the golden-colour'd flower / A fair electric flame." 66 Goethe described the "mächtig rothe Farbe" of the oriental poppy seen flashing its "Blitz" in a June twilight, "der Blitz eigentlich das Scheinbild der Blume, in der geforderten blaugrünen Farbe." 67 Purkinje's account is more attentive to the responsiveness of the eye. This concern is evident, too, in the commentary on the entoptic phenomena. Goethe received from Purkinje, apparently with his letter of 7 February 1823, a careful account "über farbige Dunsthöfe an Glasscheiben" in which Purkinje examines the shifting of color in the entoptic figure seen in a frosted pane (Paralipomena, CXVI). 6 8 Purkinje's exploration of the capacities and the limitations of the eye enabled Goethe to accept the objectivity of the subjective approach. Johannes Müller acknowledged that it was Goethe's Farbenlehre that provoked him to examine the relationship between physiology and

R.Jung, ed., Handbook of Sensory Physiology (Berlin, Heidelberg, New York: Springer, 1973), VII/3a and 3 b. " See Ch. VII, note 18. 67 WA, II, Bd.l, 23-25, §54. 68 "Neuer entoptischer Fall," WA, II, Bd. 52, 396-3 98. 65

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anatomy, between function and organ.69 From Goethe, Müller developed his doctrine on the specific energy of the sense organs and of psychomotor reflex actions. His Handbuch der Physiologie des Menschen (1833) remained the standard reference for several decades. At Miiller's death, the pathologist Rudolf Virchow emphasized the importance of Goethe's methodology: "Ist es nicht beschämend zu gestehen, daß Goethe das Prinzip der Beobachtung für die Naturwissenschaft retten mußte." 70 Ewald Hering's Zur Lehre vom Lichtsinne (1878) drew from the "Gegensatz fordernde Farben" of Goethe's "Physiologische Farben." Schopenhauer's insistence on the physiological ground of Goethe's theory now received thorough scientific demonstration. In opposing the Young-Helmholtz three-receptor theory, Hering posited a theory based on color polarity (black and white, blue and yellow, red and green). Hering claimed his theory fulfilled the "nativistic" physiological conditions of perception, while Helmholtz's theory relied on external "empiristic" factors. Nevertheless, in arguing a phenomenological physiology, Hering supposed the cones to have alternating phases (catabolic and anabolic, breaking down and building up) that would distinguish antagonistic sensations (blue impulses, for example, from yellow impulses). Such a capacity would seem to violate Müller's doctrine of specific energy. It was primarily this difficulty that led Christine LaddFranklin to propose a compromise between the Young-Helmholtz theory and the Hering theory, keeping the phenomenological advantages and avoiding the conflict with specific energy. Her scheme also extended, from Purkinje, the perimeter studies: the varying color responses of different parts of the retina.71 Johannes Müller developed his doctrine of specific energy with appeal to the Farbenlehre. "Wir bewundern die höchste Vernunft in dem Bau des Auges wie in jedem Teile des Knochengerüstes; in dem Muskelbau jedes Gliedes."72 The sensory experience reveals the Vernunft in the

69

70

71 72

Müller, Vergleichende Physiologie des Gesichtssinnes des Menschen und der Thiere nehst einem Versuch über die Bewegung der Augen und über den menschlichen Blick (Leipzig, 1826). See also: U . Ebbecke, Johannes Müller der große rheinische Physiologe, mit einem Neudruck von Müllers Schrift, Über die phantastischen Gesichtserscheinungen (Coblenz, 1826) (Hannover, 1951). Rudolf Virchow, "Gedächtnisrede an Johannes Müller" (1858), quoted in Rudolf Magnus, Goethe als Naturforscher (Leipzig, 1906). Wasserman, pp. 9 0 - 9 2 ; 113, 139, 152. Müller, Vergleichende Physiologie; Müller also acknowledged Goethe in Bildungsgeschichte der Genitalien (1830), quoted in Heinrich Schipperges, Welt des Auges, Tur Theorie des Sehens und Kunst des Schauens (Breisgau: Verlag Herder, 1978), p. 103.

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affinity of mind and nature, subject and object, idea and instinct. As Müller reasserted in his physiology, the antimonies defines organic affinity. "Sie sehen," Goethe told Eckermann (1 February 1827), "es ist nichts außer uns, was nicht zugleich in uns wäre, und wie die äußere Welt ihre Farben hat, so hat auch das Auge." In endorsing the affinity between the physical and the physiological phenomena, Goethe still was not prepared to admit that color phenomena should be considered in terms of the Sinnesphysiologie of stimulus and response. Although he welcomed the help of Purkinje in providing the "abermalige Begründung, weitere Ausdehnung, genauere Bestimmung und frischen Glanz" to the "physiologische Abtheilung," 73 he nevertheless kept the distinction between the physiological and the physical colors intact. As he went on to explain to Eckermann, he continued to see the proper discrimination of subjective and objective phenomena as the crux in constructing a proper science of perception: "Da es nun bei dieser Wissenschaft ganz vorzüglich auf scharfe Sonderung des Objektiven vom Subjektiven ankommt, so habe ich billig mit den Farben, die dem Auge gehören, den Anfang gemacht, damit wir bei allen Wahrnehmungen immer wohl unterscheiden, ob die Farbe auch wirklich außer uns existiere, oder ob es eine bloße Scheinfarbe sei, die sich das Auge selbst erzeugt hat."74 In Purkinje, Goethe found affirmation of the Urphänomen in the "trübes Mittel" of the eye itself. This affinity of antimonies confirmed Goethe's definition of the eye "als ein Geschöpf des Lichtes": "Wär' nicht das Auge sonnenhaft, / Wie könnten wir das Licht erblicken?" 75 From his account of the entoptic phenomenon, I have already quoted his insistence on such reciprocity: "Was in der Atmosphäre vorgeht, begibt sich gleichfalls in des Menschen Auge, und der entoptische Gegensatz ist auch der physiologe." As I intend to show in the next chapter, Goethe's sense of the identity of the entoptic and the physiological "Gegensatz" led him to create the Homunculus in Faust II out of the entoptic figure in the Bolognese bottle. The potential Christian symbolism in the black/ white cross of the entoptic figure made the dramatization of Homunculus especially useful as the light-bearer of the "Klassische Walpurgisnacht."

75 74

75

WA, II, Bd. 5, 405-406. Johann Peter Eckermann, Gespräche mit Goethe (Berlin: Deutsche Buch-Gemeinschaft, 1923), I, 218. WA, II, Bd. 1, 16. Goethe acknowledged these lines as the words "eines alten Mystikers"; the verse from Plotinus he first uses in a dedication dated "Lauchstedt, d. 1. Sept. 1805," and he included it in "Zahme Xenien."

III. Goethe's Homunculus: The Mediation of Light At the opening of the "Walpurgisnacht" in Faust, I, Mephistopheles calls forth an "Irrlicht" to guide the way through the dark Harz mountains to the rite of witches. The "Wechselgesang" of Faust, Mephistopheles, and Irrlicht is a nocturne to the Schreckenbilder of the dark passage separating the light first seen above, "die unvollkommne Scheibe / D e s roten Mondes mit später Glut," and the light subsequently seen below, "Wie seltsam glimmert durch die G r ü n d e / E i n morgenrötlich trüber Schein" (3851-2, 3889-3905, 3916-7). 1 The significance of dioptric color and optical phenomena here has been usefully interpreted by Rupprecht Matthaei in "Die Farbenlehre im Faust" (1948).2 In Faust, II, the lightbearer who accompanies Faust and Mephistopheles to the "Klassische Walpurgisnacht" is the bottle-born, bottle-bound Homunculus. His role is more extensive than that of the ephemeral, phosphorescent Irrlicht, and his light is more complex than previous commentators have noted. He is not only instrumental in leading Faust to Helena, "ein doppelhaft Gebild" (8882), his mediation also explains the relation of the Finsternis of "die Mütter" and the Licht of the Mater Gloriosa. Goethe's poetic play with optical effects in Faust, II, differs from Faust, I, because of his new interest with "Die entoptischen Farben." After the publication of Faust (1808) and Farbenlehre (1810), Goethe corresponded with Thomas Seebeck on polarized light, and he began to record his own experiments with rhomboid spar and tempered glass.3 Within the cube of tempered glass, suspended within its crystalline confines, he saw the full entoptic apparition: a cross, now black, now white, surrounded by four color-altering "Pfauenaugen." As a poet, he 1

2

3

References to Faust, noted by line number parenthetically in the text, are from Goethes Faust, Der Tragödie erster und zweiter Teil, Urfaust (Hamburg: Christian Wegner Verlag, 1968), ed. with commentary by Erich Trunz. References to the "Naturwissenschaftliche Schriften" are from Goethes Werke (Weimar: Hermann Böhlau, 1887-1919), Abteilung II, Bde. 1-5 2 ; cited as WA below. Matthaei, "Die Farbenlehre im Faust," Jahrbuch der Goethe-Gesellschaft, 10 (n. s.) (1948), 59-148. Although concerned with symbol rather than visual process, a thorough commentary on color references is provided in Peter Schmidt, Goethes Farbensymbolik. Untersuchungen zu Verwendung und Bedeutung der Farben in den Dichtungen und Schriften Goethes (Berlin: Erich Schmidt, 1965). Seebeck, "Geschichte der entoptischen Farben," in WA, II, Bd. 5, 229-238.

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was fascinated with the color-rings that seemed to stare wide-eyed out from the depths of the double-refracting glass. Before he appropriated the "Pfauenaugen" of the entoptic figure into his poetry as metaphorical "Augen," he tried to determine the cause of the phenomenon and what it might reveal, analogically, about the process of color perception. Not until he read Purkinje's account of the "organisches Kreuz," as I pointed out in the last chapter, did he realize the full extent of the entoptic analogy. But he had already claimed two different states of retinal response. The triangular shape of the prism provided two refracting surfaces that bent light sufficiently to enable the eye to see a shift of images, a separation between a primary and secondary image. The overlapping created the "trübes Mittel" in which the eye perceived bands of color. Double-refracting glass or crystal also bent the light in two directions. When Goethe placed it not before his eyes but directly on a surface, such as a printed page, he beheld a marked separation of "Halbund Schattenbilder." But the bands of color appeared only in the secondary image.4 In the Farbenlehre he had observed instances of refraction without the appearance of color (Didaktik, § 195-196), but only when no outline or boundary was visible. With the prism, both the primary and secondary images were significantly shifted ("gerückt"); with the double-refracting glass, not the primary but only the secondary image was markedly shifted. Similarly, he had noted that the eye itself possessed two completely separate processes of seeing, one attuned to light the other to darkness: "Die Retina befindet sich, je nachdem Licht oder Finsternis auf sie wirken, in zwei verschiedenen Zuständen, die einander völlig entgegenstehen" (Didaktik, §5). Of course, even after Purkinje observed the red/yellow flashes at twilight, it was not until 1866 that Max Schultze distinguished the rods and cones as two classes of photoreceptors: the color-perceiving photopic vision and the more light sensitive gray-perceiving scotopic.5 Goethe, however, had already recognized "zwei verschiedene Zustände" which he characterized according to their differing susceptibility or sensitivity ("Empfänglichkeit"). 6 He did not go on to claim the duplex nature of the retina was 4 5

6

"Doppelbilder des rhombischen Kalkspaths" (12 Jan. 1813), WA, II, Bd. 5, 239-245. Max Schultze, "Zur Anatomie und Physiologie der Retina," Archiv für mikroskopische Anatomie, II (1866), 175-286; "Über Stäbchen und Zapfen der Retina," Archiv für mikroskopische Anatomie, III (1867), 215-247. R. A. Weale, "The Duplicity Theory of Vision," Annals of the Royal College of Surgeons, X X V I I I (1961), 16-36; H.Ripps and R. A. Weale, "The Visual Photoreceptors," in The Eye, Visual Function in Man, H a (London: Academic Press, 1976), 5—41. In reviewing early studies on the duplex retina, Weale cites "Physiologische Farben" § § 5 - 1 4 , 23, 54, as evidence that "the duplex nature of human vision was already appreciated by Goethe and eloquently expressed in his Theory of Colour."

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identical to the entoptic phenomenon, but he did recognize that the entoptic "Pfauenaugen" emerged from the very threshold of light/dark duplicity, and, further, that the shift of the white cross into the black was accompanied by a transformation of the colorful halos into the "geforderte Gegensätze" in accord with the same principles of "fordernde" and "geforderte" colors he had explained in his account of colored shadows and other physiological responses. The liminal duplicity of the entoptic figure offered rich potentiality as metaphor. H e had often invoked the dioptric contrast of yellow-red and blue-violet for the temporal movement of light approaching and departing; for example, he made that movement presage of guilt and grace in the song of the Harpist in Wilhelm Meister: Ihm färbt der Morgensonne Licht D e n reinen Horizont mit Flammen, Und über seinem schuldigen Haupte bricht Das schöne Bild der ganzen Welt zusammen.

The entoptic figure held new metaphorical possibilities in its intriguing dimensions of time and space: the black and white crosses and their "Pfauenaugen" somehow existed "Nebeneinander," but were visible only "Nacheinander." The eye, outside looking in, could only search in vain for the hidden nexus. The poet, however, could lend sentience to the entoptic "Pfauenauge": this was the course he pursued in creating the Homunculus. He might also create a lyric perspective out of the liminal duplicity and make an entoptic glass of his poem: this was the advantage he found in the ghazal. The series of poems, in the manner of Hafiz, which he assembled in his West-östlicher Divan (1814-1819) not only were an occasion to exploit this new optical metaphor, they provided a certain preparatory exploration of the peculiar mode of perception he later gave to Homunculus. Like Keats "On first looking into Chapman's Homer," Goethe, too, on first looking into Hammer's Hafiz, 7 must have " f e l t . . . like some watcher of the skies / W h e n a new planet swims into his ken." His enchantment with the ghazal of Hafiz, as he recorded in his Noten und Abhandlungen, led him to study Persian history and religion, even to practice Arabic writing. N o matter that Goethe never mastered the form of the ghazal.8 He grasped with a poet's insight the salient features of 7

8

Der Divan des Mohammed Schemsed-din Hafis, aus dem Persischen zum ersten Male ganz übersetzt von Joseph von Hammer (Stuttgart und Tübingen, 1812). Emil Staiger, Goethe (Zürich: Atlantis Verlag, 1959), III, 18, granting that the form and conventions of the ghazal are difficult for the European to understand, argues that Rücken, Platen, Daumer, Gottfried Keller, and Bodenstedt succeeded in imitating the

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Hafiz' style. Just as he was later to see in Homunculus "ein allgemeiner Weltkalender," in Hafiz' ghazal he saw the "Alphabet des Weltgeists." Indeed, the unifying qualities of the ghazal were "Ubersicht des Weltwesens, Ironie, freier Gebrauch der Talente."9 To be sure, Goethe failed to understand how refined a form the ghazal had become, restricted in its themes as well as in its metrical structure, before the lifetime of Hafiz (1327-1390). Even after Hafiz, later Sufi poets intensified the spiritual, mystical, and meditative attributes of the ghazal, and defined the traditional imagery of sensual and erotic indulgence as the longing of the soul for union with the divine. Goethe knew that Hafiz was a professed dervish and Sufi, a teacher of Koranic exegesis, but he was confident that he read the poems correctly and recognized a kindred spirit in the poet. Thus he reveals the "Offenbares Geheimnis" of Hafiz' ghazal: Sie haben dich, heiliger Hafis, Die mystische Zunge genannt, Und haben, die Wortgelehrten, Den Wert des Worts nicht erkannt. Mystisch heißest du ihnen, Weil sie Närrisches bei dir denken, U n d ihren unlautern Wein In deinem Namen verschenken. D u aber bist mystisch rein Weil sie dich nicht verstehn, Der du, ohne fromm zu sein, selig bist! Das wollen sie dir nicht zugestehn. 10

In Hafiz' ghazal Goethe detected persistent paradox in the mystical eroticism, too lasciviously sensual to be deemed spiritual, except by those w h o believe that piety is the only way to spiritual ecstasy. Like the

5

10

external form; he repeats, apparently from H . H . Schraeder, Goethes Erlebnis des Ostens (Leipzig, 1938), the claim that Hafiz rarely gave the ghazal thematic or emotional cohesion, and that Hafiz relied instead on surprising combinations and was concerned with unity only in each set of rhymed lines, not in the ghazal as a whole. Hedayat Izadpanah, "Figure and Form in Lyric Poetry: A Study of Verbal Artifice in Shakespeare's Sonnets and Ghazals of Hafez" (Diss. University of California, Los Angeles, 1981), by attending to spatial rather than linear unity, makes a more thorough case for the unity of the ghazals of Hafiz than had previously been forwarded by Arthur Arberry, "The Art of Hafiz," Aspects of Islamic Civilization (London: Allen & Unwin, 1964), pp. 344-358; and by Michael Hillman, Unity in the Ghazals of Hafez (Chicago: Bibliotheca Islamica, 1976). Ankündigung der Helenatragödie (1826), WA, I, Bd. 152, 201 ; Letter to F. v. Müller (27 April 1818), WA, IV, Bd. 29, 156; "Noten und Abhandlungen," WA, I, Bd. 7, 101-107, 111-114. West-östlicher Divan, WA, I, Bd. 6, 378.

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interplay of the black and white cross in the entoptic figure, the ghazal seemed to subsist in the ironic transpositions of "Sinnliches" and " U b e r sinnliches." 11 The very words of the ghazal are double-refracting, breaking into primary and secondary images to baffle the "Wortgelehrten." T o the "Offenbar Geheimnis," Goethe added his knowing " W i n k " : Und doch haben sie Recht, die ich schelte: Denn daß ein Wort nicht einfach gelte, Das müßte sich wohl von selbst verstehn. Das Wort ist ein Fächer! Zwischen den Stäben Blicken ein Paar schöne Augen hervor. Der Fächer ist nur ein lieblicher Flor, Er verdeckt mir zwar das Gesicht, Aber das Mädchen verbirgt er nicht, Weil das Schönste, was sie besitzt, Das Auge, mir ins Auge blitzt.

Retracting his exposure of Hafiz' "Offenbares Geheimnis," Goethe granted that "die Wortgelehrten" were right to interpret a mystical meaning in Hafiz' words and invest his sensual allusions with high spiritual import in their allegorical exegesis of the ghazal. After all, the one thing that is self-evident about words, "Das müßte sich wohl von selbst verstehn," is that their meaning is never "einfach." With his own high-charged irony, Hafiz enriched the traditional Sufistic association of corporeal and spiritual experience. H e engaged his ironic word-play as a protective shield, but also as a weapon against sanctimony and dogmatic piety. His irony was not merely a poetic strategy, it was the aesthetic manifestation of his perception of the elusive nature of reality: nature was never exposed naked, but always partially hidden and veiled. Let those who wish to discover the profundity of Sufi mysticism in Hafi's ghazal enjoy their reading; meanwhile, Goethe would choose to see every word as a fan veiling a beautiful face yet revealing a seductive eye that flashed into his own eye.12 T h e case for the ghazal as entoptic poetry does not rest, then, merely on the extensive play of paradoxical juxtapositions: an east-west lyric 11

12

Friedrich Rücken, Oestliche Rosen (1821), translated and imitated Hafiz' ghazal, yet offered a limited view of Hafiz' irony and paradox: "Hafiz, wo er scheinet Ubersinnliches/Nur zu reden, redet über Sinnliches./Oder redet er, wo über Sinnliches/Er zu reden scheint, nur Übersinnliches?" Out of this confusion, Rückert concluded: "Sein Geheimnis ist unübersinnlich,/Denn sein Sinnliches ist übersinnlich." Quoted in Schrae&er, p. 122. Letter to Zelter (17 April 1815): "Das jOrientalisieren finde ich sehr gefährlich, denn eh man sich versieht, geht das derbste Gèdicht, wie ein Luftballon, für lauter rationellem und spirituellem Gas, womit es sich anfüllt uns aus den Händen und in alle Lüfte." WA, IV, Bd. 25, 269.

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woven of double-entendre on pious profligacy, past and present. Goethe also adapted to his own concern with visual perception Hafiz' imagery of a transluscent or transparent reality and evanescent appearances, a partially revealed world into which, or through which, the poet may briefly peer, sometimes as lusting voyeur, sometimes as inspired visionary. The peacock feather placed in the Koran, in "Ich sah mit Staunen," provided an apt conceit of irreverence and ostentation, resolved in metaphorical liminality when the poet beholds in the "Pfauenauge" no mere iridescent circle but the imprint of the all-seeing eye of God: "Daß er, der Welten überblickt, /Sein Auge hier hat aufgedrückt." The rapid rise to the sublime may be bewildering but the sudden fall produces the greater shock. The ghazal may be a place of lofty reveries, but this place may be abruptly transformed into a steamy bedchamber, a boisterous tavern, or some dim "Antichamber" in which the eye cannot distinguish "Mäusedreck von Koriandern," yet Goethe defended, in "Keinen Reimer wird man finden," the satirical thrust of its ascents and descents, even its wayward pauses and bold introspections: the ghazal merely mirrors the hypocrisy and ambivalence of society, the ambiguity of nature, and the ambitendencies of the beholder. Goethe could hold the ghazal aloft, as in "Allgegenwärtige," and let it catch the light of the Urphänomen radiating through the veil of nature. In all six quatrains of this ghazal, the varied beauties of nature are observed, then, in the alternating lines of I-Thou union, the informing essence is perceived and absorbed. In tausend Formen magst du dich verstecken, Doch, Allerliebste, gleich erkenn' ich dich; Du magst mit Zauberschleiern dich bedecken, Allgegenwärt'ge, gleich erkenn' ich dich Wenn am Gebirg' der Morgen sich entzündet, Gleich, Allerheiternde, begrüß' ich dich, Dann über mir der Himmel rein sich ründet, Allherzerweiternde, dann atm' ich dich. Was ich mit äußerm Sinn, mit innerm kenne, D u Allbelehrende, kenn' ich durch dich; Und wenn ich Allahs Namenhundert nenne, Mit jedem klingt ein Name nach für dich.

Goethe also explored, with the same sort of prolepsis which he engaged in Die Metamorphose der Pflanze (1790), the revelation of the Urphänomen in the bilobal leaf of the Gingo Biloba: Ist es Ein lebendig Wesen, Das sich in sich selbst getrennt? Sind es zwei, die sich erlesen, Daß man sie als Eines kennt?

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These are questions which later arise in the speculations over the identity of the hermaphroditic Homunculus, and gain in Homunculus' questions about his own Entstehen in the midst of the debate between Thaïes and Anaxagoras on the origins of life. Obviously, they are also questions which Goethe might reasonably put to the "Doppelwesen" of the entoptic figure. For the purpose of his poem, however, Goethe returned the queries to the double-refracting characteristic of the ghazal: "Fühlst du nicht an meinen Liedern, /Daß ich Eins und doppelt bin?" If the Urphänomen lurks in the lyric "Phänomen," Goethe was careful to cover the more intimate implications with the veil of symbolism. The three stanzas of the "Phänomen" describe: first, the colorful rainbow as a gloria radiating from the sexual union of the sun-god and the rain; then, the colorless white halo as the sun penetrates the fog; finally, the hope addressed to a merry, white-haired old man: "Doch wirst du lieben." The seventy-year-old poet manifestly delighted in his dual role in the dialogues of the poet Hatem (a name which he pretended would rhyme, instead of his own, with "Morgenröte") and the inspiring Suleika, and his shifting lyric identity, now passionate persona, now aloof narrator. In "Unbegrenzt," he declared that in adopting the ghazal he had engaged a bond with Hafiz: "Hafis, mit dir, mit dir allein /Will ich wetteifern." Within the ghazal, they had become twin spirits, but their ecstasy of kissing and carousing was kindled only in the intrinsic fire of the ghazal, at once older and younger than either of the poetic "Zwillingen": "Nun töne, Lied, mit eignem Feuer!/Denn du bist älter, du bist neuer." Just as Empedocles sought immortal union with quintessence by leaping into fiery Aetna, Goethe expressed in "Selige Sehnsucht" the longing to leap into the very fire which burnt within the ghazal. With the flickering of a candle, the satiated passions of a night of love-making in darkness are aroused by an irresistable desire to embrace the brightest light and, like a moth, perish in the flame: In der Liebesnächte Kühlung, Die dich zeugte, w o du zeugtest, Überfällt dich fremde Fühlung, Wenn die stille Kerze leuchtet. Nicht mehr bleibest du umfangen In der Finsternis Beschattung, Und dich reißet neu Verlangen Auf zu höherer Begattung Und solang du das nicht hast, Dieses: Stirb und werde! Bist du nur ein trüber Gast Auf der dunklen Erde.

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Were he not impelled by a lust for light, the "trüber Gast" would passively await, as any inert "trübes Mittel," the rainbow caress of the passing day. But impelled he is, and the transitory touch is not enough; his "höhere Begattung" is absolute. "Stirb und werde," at once relevant to the mystery of Homunculus' Entstehen and Faust's redemption, here describes no momentary escape from the darkness of material existence, but an eternal wedding in the "Taten und Leiden" of light. In "Wiederfinden," the inquiry into the mystery of death and becoming seems less of an Empedoclesian leap into a brilliant vortex, for the poem presents "das Werden" not as a salto mortale but as a continuing cycle of the creative process, light and darkness, life and death. The crucial ambiguity, often exercised in the West-östlicher Divan, is Goethe's veiled "du," the "Stern der Sterne" whom he clasps to his heart. Whether the poet is embracing his mistress or his poem makes little difference to the argument about the creative fulfillment of their embrace. Their separation has been a night of distance, an abyss, an anguish; their reunion restores the process of becoming. The second stanza describes the fiat lux: "Mit erhabner Schöpfungslust," God "sprach das Wort: es werde!" and the "All" shattered into "Wirklichkeiten." The third and fourth stanzas form a hymn not to light, but to the "Taten und Leiden des Lichts." After light revealed himself, darkness coyly retreated: all the elements divided and fled into dismal solitude. God then conjured Aurora, who spread her array of colors around light and darkness, transforming their antagonism into love: Stumm war alles, still und öde, Einsam Gott zum erstenmal! D a erschuf er Morgenröte, Die erbarmte sich der Qual; Sie entwickelte dem Trüben Ein erklingend Farbenspiel, U n d nun konnte wieder lieben, Was erst auseinander fiel.

Once again, the "trübes Mittel" mediates the creative play of colors as the dawn initiates the love-act perpetuated by lovers, and by poets, everywhere: Seis Ergreifen, sei es Raffen, Wenn es nur sich faßt und hält! Allah braucht nicht mehr zu schaffen, Wir erschaffen seine Welt.

The metaphor is often repeated: divine energy of light is sexually propagated; its erotic penetration of rain or mist, jewel or pearl, diaphanous veil or fair eye, is an act to be celebrated. The corporeal

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embrace is the mortal re-enactment of the divine creation: "Wir erschaffen seine Welt." His "Vermächtnis altpersischen Glaubens," after reciting sound counsel for good husbandry, prescribed for the priesthood the elements for conjuring "Gottes Gleichnis." A flintstone sets the blaze: Wo die Flamme brennt, erkennet freudig: Hell ist Nacht, und Glieder sind geschmeidig. An des Herdes raschen Feuerkräften Reift das Rohe Tier- und Pflanzensäften. Schleppt ihr Holz herbei, so tut's mit Wonne; Denn ihr tragt den Samen ird'scher Sonne. Pflückt ihr Pambeh, mögt ihr traulich sagen: Diese wird als Docht das Heil'ge tragen. Werdet ihr in jeder Lampe Brennen Fromm den Abglanz höhern Lichts erkennen, Soll euch nie ein Mißgeschick verwehren, Gottes Thron am morgen zu verehren.

The practical devotion to the "Abglanz höhern Lichts" may be more modest than Faust's jubilant celebration of the rainbow, "Am farbigen Abglanz haben wir das Leben" (4727), but the participation in the divine identity of light is much the same. Perhaps, too, this domestic conjuring at the hearth has its parallel in Wagner's conjuring of Homunculus. Seven years were to pass, after the publication of the West-östlicher Divan (1819), until he first proposed a "chemisches Männlein." I find it futile to try to build conjectural bridges across that interim. It is enough to observe that in writing the ghazal, Goethe learned to mimic Hafiz' ironic simultaneity of opposites, his paradoxes and paranomasia, his imagery of a transluscent peek-a-boo reality." Although he was gathering these poems for his West-östlicher Divan (1814 to 1819) precisely within the same span of years that he also devoted to his Entoptische Farben (1813 to 1820), and had associated the studied ambiguity of the ghazal with the fluctuating entoptic figure, he did not immediately recognize their dramatic possibilities for his Faust. The conjuration of a "chemisches Männlein" out of the flames of the laboratory hearth was not proposed until Goethe had finished the "Helena Klassisch-romantische Phantasmagoric," the central act of Faust, II. That he might have the character of a ghazal and the eyes of a double-refracting glass were attributes added only after Goethe tried to give dramatic life to his "chemisches Männlein." In his early notes, Goethe had Wagner alchemically engender the bottle-imp, who immedi13

Izadpanah, pp. 3-18.

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ately shattered the confining glass. His defining characteristic was to have been his "Weltkalender": Besonders zeigt sich, daß in ihm ein allgemeiner historischer Weltkalender enthalten sei: er wisse nämlich in jedem Augenblick anzugeben, was seit Adams Bildung bei gleicher Sonn-, M o n d - , Erd- und Planetenstellung unter Menschen vorgegangen sei.

Although it was a convenient ploy for the little man to announce the astrological marking of the very date of the "klassische Walpurgisnacht," Goethe must have subsequently recognized that there was more tedium than humor to be mined from a "Weltkalender": Ein grenzenloses Geschwirre geographisch-historischer Notizen, auf die Gegenden, worüber sie hinstreifen, bezüglich, aus dem Munde des eingesackten Männleins läßt sie bei der Pfeilschnelle des Flugwerks unterwegs nicht zu sich selbst kommen, bis sie endlich beim Lichte des klaren, obschon abnehmenden Mondes zur Fläche Thessaliens gelangen.

Goethe then described a comic encounter with Erichthonius and Erichtho, male and female spirits of rebirth and repetition in cyclical history. In the final version, he does away with both the comic exchange and the male factor, and has Erichtho speak in monologue. In the next scene, the "chemisches Männlein" was to gather "eine Menge phosphoreszierender Atome" into a phial and beg Wagner to turn the blue and purple radiation into a "chemisches Weiblein." Wagner shakes the bottle and causes the residue of history to explode, scattering the dust of Ceasar and Pompeii into the four winds to be propagated and "durch Millionen Bildungsfolgen aufgenommen und verarbeitet."14 In reworking this sketch for Act II, Goethe made radical alterations. For flexibility of dialogue, it would be better to make the little man less a "Weltkalender" and more a "Weltgeist." A suggestive feature that needed further development was the parallel between Faust and Helena in Act III and the sexual longings of the little man in Act II. It was inefficient to have the little man burst one bottle, travel "eingesackt" through space and time, and then seek his bride in another bottle. The parallel with the "Irrlicht," who served as guide to the Walpurgis festival in Faust, I, no doubt suggested the device of leaving the little man in his bottle and granting him the power to radiate light. He could not have searched long for an appropriate "Phiole" to contain his "chemisches Männlein," whom he now named Homonculus, after Paracelsus' account of the recipe. An entoptic bottle, with its huge staring "Pfauenaugen," was the proper container for the liminal wit striving for Entstehen. 14

Paralipomena § § 3 5 ^ 0 , W A , I, Bd. 15 2 , 1 9 8 - 2 1 1 .

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The entoptic figure, Goethe wrote, could be discovered in various atmospheric conditions involving light through fog and could often be observed within the halo around the sun or moon. 1 5 Goethe also reported seeing the entoptic figure in the melting ice on a window as reflected in a mirror. 16 H e found it in such natural crystals as selenite (Fraueneis), spar (Kalkspat), mica-schist (Glimmerblättchen), and turmaline. Chiefly he studied the entoptic effects in tempered glass, following the discoveries of Thomas Seebeck. Blown glass, rapidly cooled, such as Prinz Rupprecht vials and Bolognese bottles, not only produce entoptic figures, they also have the peculiarity, as Goethe noted, of being hard on the outside but easily shattered from within: "Man kennt jene Flaschen und Becher welche durch hineingeworfene Steinchen rissig werden, ja zerspringen." The waves produced in heating glass to the melting point, Goethe reasoned, are allowed to subside in slow cooling, but they become trapped in rapid cooling. Because of these trapped waves, the glass is layered: "die Masse bleibt innerlich getrennt, spröde, die Teile stehen nebeneinander und obgleich vor wie nach durchsichtig, behält das Ganze etwas, das man Punktualität genannt hat." The light works on these layers much as it does in those phenomena Goethe described as epoptic (e. g., a thin layer of oil on water). But these layers are within the glass, not on the surface. Furthermore, the layers are not random, but in the repeated rhythmic pattern of the waves. Thus the color-changing eyes and the alternating black and white cross always have their fixed shape. But the "Schwingungen" within entoptic glass retain their potential to motion and strive against their entrapment. The resulting tension, a modern scientist would call it molecular strain, causes tempered glass to shatter almost explosively: "die . . . zerspringen . . . und lassen ein pulverartiges Wesen zurück." Even the splinters perpetuate, "Solutio continui," a configuration. Zugleich mit diesen Eigenschaften gewinnt nun das Glas die Fähigkeit Figuren und Farben in seinem Innern sehen zu lassen.17

The figure in the Bolognese bottle Goethe described again as Wagner frets over the creation of Homunculus:

15

16 17

WA, II, Bd. 5, 294-298 (§§30-31); see also; Gunter Hoppe, "Goethes Ansichten über Meteorite und sein Verhältnis zu dem Physiker Chladni," Goethe, X C V (1978), 227-240. WA, II, Bd. 5, 419-420. WA, II, Bd. 5, 290 (§27).

Goethe's Homunculus: The Mediation of Light Schon hellen sich die Finsternisse: Schon in der innersten Phiole Erglüht es wie lebendige Kohle, Ja wie der herrlichste Karfunkel, Verstrahlend Blitze durch das Dunkel. Ein helles weißes Licht erscheint!

91

(6823-6828)

Should the poet pretend to conjure a little man in a bottle, it may seem absurd to insist that for scientific accuracy it must be a Bolognese bottle. Yet for Goethe this truth is crucial, for his Homunculus must present in poetry's imaginative Gestalt not only the idea of organic vitality but also of visual polarity. For his Römische Elegien (1786), the classical Goethe had created the voice of a mediator adept in translating a distant ethos across cultural and historical boundaries. In transporting Faust and Mephistopheles from medieval Germany into classical Greece, Homunculus, too, would have to serve as such a mediator across cultural and historical boundaries, but he would also have to mediate across the boundaries of body and soul, waking and dreaming, being and nonbeing. For his West-östlicher Divan, Goethe had engaged the voice of liminality. Homunculus has this voice. From out of his own spiritual detachment, Homunculus sees and shares the longing of the flesh. His is the worldly-wise Geist, fully capable of interpreting the primal urges in dreams and myths. In the midst of the "Zwiespalt der Natur" in the "Klassische Walpurgisnacht," Goethe confirmed through Homunculus, as "Doppelwesen" from an entoptic realm, the coexistence of positive and negative being.18 Goethe's concern with the truth of his optical metaphor in Faust has been well documented by Rupprecht Matthaei. Goethe even cited his own description of the "schwarzer Pudel" and its "Feuerstrudel" as an example in Farbenlehre of physiological color. The opposition of Licht and Finsternis gain in Faust a meaning more profound than the mere optical incidence of color. The "Prolog im Himmel" begins with a hymn celebrating the diurnal repetition of the fiat lux, "herrlich wie am ersten Tag." Raphael sings of the source of light, Gabriel of the "tiefe, schauervolle Nacht," and Michael of the material refraction: "da flammt ein blitzendes Verheeren" (242-270). In the opening scene of Faust, II, Ariel leads the "Geisterchor" in a parallel celebration, singing in the same stanza as the Archangels of the diurnal round: serenade, notturno, mattutino, reveille. Faust awakens to praise life and light. The principles

18

Goethe parodies Schelling's "Identitäts-Philosophie" and the "Wege zum Absolut" in the Homunculus as "Doppelwesen" questing toward "Entstehen"; see reference to Schelling in "Historischer Theil," Zur Farbenlehre: WA, II, Bd. 4, 301.

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of "Streben" and "Tätigkeit" are beheld in the very coercion of color in the polarity of light and darkness: "Auch Färb' an Farbe klärt sich los vom Grunde" (4692). The symbol of "das menschliche Bestreben" Faust recognizes in the "Wechseldauer" of the rainbow caught by the sunlight in the torrent of the waterfall, and he ponders the moral of the "farbiger Abglanz" (4727). The effects of color and human character are both defined as Taten und Leiden. "Die Farben," as he declared in the foreword to Farbenlehre, "sind Taten des Lichts, Taten und Leiden."" When Faust acknowledges the same principle in human character, he feels himself constrained and confined: "unsre Taten selbst, so gut als unsre Leiden" he complains, "Sie hemmen unsres Lebens Gang" (632-633). The dilemma, Faust's "Zwei Seelen" (1112), must be resolved in a balance of impulse and responsibility (Pflicht und Neigung), a sense of permanence in change (Wechsel und Dauer), and a responsive suffering and directing activity (bedingte Tätigkeit). Because the dialectics of Polaritätsgedanken tend to ease into reductive oversimplification, Goethe might well have welcomed the complexity of the entoptic metaphor. Homunculus, born of the positive-negative coincidence of entoptic polarity, could represent for Goethe the mercurial liminality of perception. From his vantage as entoptic figure, Homunculus could peer into both objective and subjective realms. He could proffer a "klassische Walpurgisnacht" as "Gegenbild" to Mephistopheles' world of "Romantische Gespenster" (6946). He could subsume both the organic and inorganic, even reconcile the theories of Anaxagoras and Thaies. In Farbenlehre color phenomena were classed as subjective (the physiological colors), objective (the chemical colors), and subjective-objective (the physical colors). The entoptic colors, whose Wechsel was "die zarteste Sache" determined by "der geringste Anlaß," seemed to teeter on the very hyphen of subjective-objective. Homunculus' first act, as he "schwebt über Faust und beleuchtet ihn," is to peer into the dream of the sleeping Faust (6903-6920). What he sees within the dream, "Die lieblichste von allen Szenen," is the seduction of Leda by the swan prince, Zeus. The mythic conception of Helena, another mode of "künstliche Erzeugung," is a parallel to the "Erzeugung" of Homunculus; both Homunculus and Helena must await "Entstehung." In the dream, Homunculus sees, similar to his own "Phiole," the "durchsichtige Helle" of the "klares Gewässer," where the body's "holde Lebensflamme" is cooled "im schmiegsamen Kristall," anticipating the "schmiegen" of erotic touch. Mephistopheles, of course, cannot see 19

"Vorwort," Zur Farbenlehre: WA, II, B d . l , ix.

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beyond this threshold. He had already scoffed at Wagner's attempted "Erzeugung": "Welch verliebtes Paar / H a b t ihr ins Rauchloch eingeschlossen?" (6836-37). When Wagner claims to link organic and inorganic nature: "was sie sonst organisieren ließ,/Das lassen wir kristallisieren" (6859-60), the irony of Mephistopheles' reply, that he has often seen "kristallisiertes Menschenvolk," points to the conditions of damnation: denying the solutio continui, the Wechseldauer; halting the dynamic flux in the static moment, "Verweile doch, du bist so schön." In dramatizing with Homunculus the same quest for Entstehen that he develops with Faust and Helena, Goethe has given this "kristallisierter Mensch" an allegorical soul. In his final scene with Thaïes and Proteus, he becomes a hermaphroditic Proto-Christ waiting to be born again. The boast of the Jews of being born of Abraham's seed, the virgin-born christ had answered: "Before Abraham was, I am" (John 8 :58). Proteus echoes these words in recognition of the praelucid identity of Homunculus; " D u bist ein wahrer Jungfernsohn, / Eh' du sein solltest, bist du schon" (8253-54). The potential of Christian symbolism in the black/ white cross of the entoptic illusion, Goethe had drawn upon in the poem, "Entoptische Farben" (17 May 1817), addressed to Julie, Countess von Egloffstein. In the midst of the "allerschönstes Farbenspiel," the name (χριστός) becomes a sign (χ): Schwarz wie Kreuze wirst du sehen, Pfauenaugen kann man finden; Tag und Abendlicht vergehen Bis zusammen beide schwinden. Und der Name wird ein Zeichen, Tief ist der Kristall durchdrungen; Aug in Auge sieht dergleichen Wundersame Spiegelungen. Lass den Makrokosmos gelten, Seine spenstischen Gestalten! Da die lieben kleinen Welten Wirklich Herrlichstes enthalten.

(11.13-14). 2 0

An important attribute of Homunculus' entoptic identity in the bottle is revealed in these lines : the glass is only the meeting place where the eyes, "die lieben kleinen Welten," encounter in Taten und Leiden, not the "spenstische Gestalten" of the macrocosm, but their own capacity of perception. Perhaps this may seem just another animadversion on the subjective-objective nature of physical phenomena; nevertheless, Goethe suggests that the entoptic figure reveals something more than reciprocity: "Aug in Auge sieht dergleichen / Wundersame 20

Matthaei, Goethes Farbenlehre

(Ravensburg: Otto Maier Verlag, 1971), p-126.

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Spiegelungen." The eye looking into the tempered glass sees another eye, not its own image, looking back. Nor does Goethe mean simply that the eye will find the staring "Pfauenaugen": rather, the "Wundersame Spiegelungen" of the "Pfauenaugen" recreate the physiological activity of the eyes responding to the exterior world: W a s in der Atmosphäre vorgeht, begibt sich gleichfalls in des Menschen Auge, und der entoptische Gegensatz ist auch der physiologe. Man schaue in dem obern Spiegel des dritten Apparates (Seebeck's device for holding tempered glass between t w o black mirrors) das Abbild des untenliegenden Kubus; man nehme sodann diesen schnell hinweg, ohne einen Blick v o m Spiegel zu verwenden, so wird die Erscheinung, die helle wie die dunkle, als gespenstiges Bild umgekehrt im Augen stehen und die Farben zugleich sich in ihre Gegensätze verwandeln, das Bräunlichgelb in Blau, und umgekehrt, dem natursinnigen Forscher zu großer Freude und Kräftigung. 21

Like the physiological opposition of the image and after-image in the eye, the tempered glass, because of the undulation trapped in rapid cooling, catches light from opposing directions and thus produces a negative-positive image. "Halbschatten" is made to exist in the same space with "Halblicht" : this is the polarized light that becomes visible as the entoptic coincidence, enabling the eye to see color in the contrast. Homunculus, too, is trapped in the glass. The mystery of his Entstehen, although it fulfills the palingenesis of Thaïes' theory as well as the mandate of the Proto-Christ, born of fire, to be born again of water (John 3 :5), may also be explained in matter-of-fact terms of his Bolognese bottle: precisely as Goethe had described it in Elemente der entoptischen Farben, it shatters into splinters sustaining the solutio continui. Born of fire in the tempered glass, Homunculus' "künstliche Erzeugung" is witnessed by Wagner in both light and sound, for the glass rings as with a "Chladnische Figur" as it reveals the opposition of klar and trüb: "Das Glas erklingt von lieblicher Gewalt,/Es trübt, es klärt sich; also muß es werden!" (6871-72). The tension of this werden in the confinement of the glass gives Homunculus his share in the Faustian dilemma. As Goethe had said in his polemic against Newton, the image of light is never "fertig," but "immer nur ein werdendes." Thus Homunculus greets Wagner as his "Väterchen" with full awareness of his "künstlich" captivity: K o m m , drücke mich recht zärtlich an dein Herz! Doch nicht zu fest, damit das Glas nicht springe. Das ist die Eigenschaft der Dinge: Natürlichem genügt das Weltall kaum, W a s künstlich ist, verlangt geschlossnen Raum. 21

W A , II, Bd. 5, 293 (§29).

(6881-6884)

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As a voice from the threshold of art and nature, myth and history, death and life, the ghost of the witch Erichtho is an apt witness to the meteoric flight by which Homunculus bears Mephistopheles and Faust into the "klassische Walpurgisnacht." Erichtho, "die düstre," is a liminal figure in the gray "Dämmerung" of shadow and mist between Licht and Finsternis. All color in her world is obscured and subdued: Überbleicht erscheint mir schon Von grauer Zelten Woge weit das Tal dahin, Als Nachgesicht der sorg- und grauenvollsten Nacht.

(7009-11 )

The shades of Peneios are gray, gray, too, the Phorkyaden from whom Mephistopheles acquires his accommodating identity as "graugeborene" Phorkyas. Grayness engulfs Helena on her return to the Palace of Menelas, and her departing flight is through the "dunkelgräulich, mauerbräunlich" fog. The mixture of all colors makes gray said Goethe in denying Newton's contention that all colors are contained in white. Colors share with gray a shading gradation from Licht into Finsternis.22 In Goethe's doctrine of polarity, tension produces color, submission grayness. Hence Goethe's comic pedagogue fails in his Newtonian demonstration: Newtonisch Weiß den Kindern vorzuzeigen: Die pädagogischem Ernst so gern sich neigen, Trat einst ein Lehrer auf mit Schwungrads Possen; Auf selbem war ein Farbenkreis geschlossen. Das dorlte nun. "Betracht es mir genau! Was siehst du, Knabe?" Nun, was seh ich? Grau! "Du siehst nicht recht! Glaubst du, daß ich das leide? Weiß, dummer Junge, weiß! so sagts Mollweide."23

Karl Brandan Mollweide, honored in Goethe's bibliography of "Widersacher" as well as here in the pedagogue's blind appeal to authority, had refuted Goethe's doctrine of polarity in a review for Zachs monatliche

22

In contrasting the black-white media of the engraver with the color palette used by the painter, J. M. W. Turner suggested that the engraver might learn to code the colors in his "spectrum" of black-white gradations; Royal Academy lecture (1810), in John Gage, Color in Turner (New York: Frederick A. Praeger, 1969), pp. 196-197. Turner's suggestion might well have been prompted by the popular magic-lantern shows, in whicbSfcolor appeared in the projection of black-white engravings. Although the first achromatic lens, in spite of Newton·^ claims of the impossibility, had already been developed by Chester Morehall in 1 » 4 (WA, II, Bd. 4, 207), highly chromatic lenses were made for optical effects with the laterna magica; see James Wood, Elements for Optics (Cambridge: J.Burges, 1801; 2nd ed.), pp. 148-152; David Brewster, Letters on Natural Magic (London: John Murray, 1832), p. 56-97.

23

WA, I, Bd. 5, 179.

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Correspondenζ (July 1810).24 In the ghazal entitled "Phänomen," Goethe had contrasted the colorful "Regenbogen" with the colorless white "Nebelbogen," relating both to the love-longings of a whitehaired old man. The colorless gray, of course, is passive. Only the active reciprocity of light and darkness elicits color in the midst of the "trübes Mittel." Through the entoptic glass the stationary image remained colorless, only the shifted secondary image revealed color-fringes. The cross that appeared in certain "atmosphärische Meteore" sometimes had red-yellow bands at the center, but only when the source of light succeeded i n penetrating through the restricting clouds. Such an "atmosphärische" effect of the sun striking an entoptic "Kreuz" in the fog frightens Helena, who mistakes the phenomena for the "goldner Stab" of Hermes shining through the vortex of gray to summon her back to Menelas (9116-9121). Homunculus as entoptic figure of polarized light, is never subdued in grayness; flickering colors attend the tension of his presence. With the meteoric passage of Homunculus, light and color intrude in the gray world of Erichtho. Red flames, and blue, brighten in the "Wunderglanz der Nacht": Der Mond, zwar unvollkommen, aber leuchtend hell, Erhebt sich, milden Glanz verbreitend, überall; Der Zelten Trug verschwindet, Feuer brennen blau. Doch über mir! welch unerwartet Meteor? Es leuchtet und beleuchtet körperlichen Ball. Ich wittre Leben.

(7031-7036)

The meteor descends; Faust arises from his long sleep. Since he dared reach into that "Doppelreich" to embrace the shadow of Helena and fend off Paris with a key, a sleep has held him. The shadow turned trüb, the key sparked an explosion, and Faust fell to the ground (6549-6563). He now awakens with the question: "Wo ist sie?" Homunculus answers: "hier wahrscheinlich zu erfragen" : Von Flamm' zu Flamme spürend gehen: Wer zu den Müttern sich gewagt, Hat weiter nichts zu überstehen.

(7056-7061)

Homunculus brightens within his bottle, "soll es blitzen, soll es klingen," and each of the three sets off on a quest through the "Labyrinth der Flammen." Mephistopheles, a displaced person in the classical world, never rises out of the affinity he finds with its grayness, but pleases himself with a passing identity as the "graugeborene" Phorkyas. Both Faust and 24

W A , II, Bd. 5, 359-361.

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Homunculus, however, must strive with the Taten and Leiden of Licht and Finsternis. Faust must re-enact the "Gang zu den Müttern," as an Orpheus seeking his Eurydice, in "Der dunkle G a n g . . . zu Persephoneien" (7490). Mephistopheles, as "Geist, der stets verneint" (1338), can comprehend neither the dynamism of Finsternis, nor its union with Licht. For him, it is Nichts. "In deinem Nichts," responds Faust, "hoff' ich das All zu finden" (6256). Jakob Boehme, who pondered the creative mystery of light in his Aurora (1612), also explored the paradox of the All in the Nichts in his Vom dreifachen Leben des Menschen (1619/20). Here he sets forth an Ungrund that strives for Grund and a primal Matrix or Geniatrix who generates in Darkness the eternal Desire.25 In Faust's quest, "die Mütter" dwell in a primal Finsternis of "Gestaltung, Umgestaltung" and "Schemen" (6283-6290). He returns with a Bild, a shadow without life. Helena, like Homunculus, must also be brought to Entstehen. In referring to the origin of color, Goethe discriminates between the terms entziehen and entstehen (he also uses entwickeln and entspringen). Under the chapter heading "Entziehung," he describes Farbe separating from Körper: "Den Körpern werden auf mancherlei Weise die Farben entzogen" . . . "Das Licht wird als eines der ersten Mittel, die Farbe den Körpern entziehen, angesehen" (Didaktik, §§ 593-598). When he speaks of entstehen, however, Körper and Farbe are one; thus, for example: "Die Farben der Mineralien sind alle chemischer Natur, und so kann in Entstehungsweise aus dem, was wir von den chemischen Farben gesagt haben, ziemlich entwickelt werden" (§613). Homunculus, as entoptic figure, suffers the strain of his "immer werdendes Licht." He is a figure of Form and Farbe without Körper. The quest for body is fulfilled in the impulse of Eros. When Mephistopheles meets Homunculus in the murky darkness of the Upper Peneios, he complains that the "allerschönster Mondenschein" cannot penetrate; even Homunculus seems bedimmed, a "Licht, das gar bescheiden glüht." In answering his "Woher des Weges?", Homunculus laments that he has no direction: Ich schwebe so von Stell' zu Stelle Und möchte gern im besten Sinn entstehn, Voll Ungeduld, mein Glas entzweizuschlagen; Allein, was ich bisher gesehn, Hinein da möcht' ich mich nicht wagen. 25

(7830-7834)

Although Boehme's Aurora (c. 1612) was the more widely influential work in the Romantic period, Vanini's Amphitheatrum (1615) may have had particular relevance to the "Lichtmetaphysik" of Faust: Hans Bayer, "Goethes Faust. Religiös-ethische Quellen und Sinndeutung," Jahrbuch des freien deutschen Hochstifts, 1978, pp. 173-224; see especially Bayer's discussion of the "Mütter-Mythos," p. 197.

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H e desires Entstehen, but knows not whither to cast his light. Mephistopheles' advice, "Willst du entstehn, entsteh auf eigne Hand!" (7848), leaves Homunculus within the mirror of automorphic space: Entstehen is either reflexive or nihilistic. The philosophers, Anaxagoras and Thaïes, proffer two interpretations of nature. Because of his "Erziehung" by fire, Homunculus understands the argument of "Entstehung" by fire. While Anaxagoras speaks power and force, Thaïes describes propagation and procreativity. T o demonstrate revolution against evolution, Anaxagoras calls forth a meteor from the moon: " D e m Auge furchtbar, ungeheuer!/Ins Düstre rötet sich sein Feuer" (7916-17). Tremendous it falls with flash and crash, "Auf einmal reißt's und blitzt und funkelt!" (7925). Thaies perceives nothing of its cataclysm, for it is foreign to his thinking. Homunculus, however, has a share of his identity in the meteor and recognizes what is "schöpferisch" in its fall. Yet its fall is not unlike Entstehen "auf eigne Hand." For Thaïes, creativity has meaning only in life. He leads Homunculus to Nereus, Old Man of the Sea, for wise counsel; Schau diese Flamme, menschenähnlich zwar, Sie deinem Rat ergibt sich ganz und gar. Der Knabe da wünscht weislich zu entstehn.

(8104-8105) (8134)

Nereus certainly should know something of color and creativity, of body and beauty; he is, after all, father of fifty daughters, including the bright and fair Galatea: " I m Farbenspiel von Venus' Muschelwagen/ Kommt Galatee, die Schönste, nun getragen" (8144-5). Nereus, "nomen est omen," remains indeterminate (νη-ρευς suggests a negation such as νη-ριτος: countless, numberless; νη-ρησις: wordless, speechless ( ! ) ; υ-ρηγμις: shoreless, beachless, boundless). N o one listens to his advice, he says; besides, he is very busy; Homunculus should go instead to that other master of changes, Proteus: "Fragt den Wundermann:/ Wie man entstehn und sich verwandeln kann" (8152-3). Proteus also seems too busy, until he grows fascinated with Homunculus' light: Ergieß ich gleich des Lichtes Menge, Bescheiden doch, daß ich das Glas nicht sprenge.

(8235-6)

Proteus advises him to let the glass splinter: "Im weiten Meere mußt du anbeginnen." Homunculus, sensing the seduction of greenness (8266), declares himself ready to penetrate into the Werden of life. Auspicious for the Augen-Blick of Entstehen, Helios and Luna join their light in the heavens. The Techinen of Rhodos raise their paean to Helios, who responds with "Feuriger Strahlenblick" and "heilige Lebensstrahlen"

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99

(8294, 8304). Proteus, true to his protean nature, becomes a dolphin to carry Homunculus into the wide expanse of waters to wed, more intimately than the Dukes of Venice, the sea. The moon, alone now among the clouds, casts an entoptic figure within its halo. Nereus reappears with the Sirens to interpret the sign as a ring of life and love: Welch ein Ring von Wölkchen ründet U m den Mond so einen reichen Kreis? Tauben sind es, liebentzündet, Fittiche, wie Licht so weiß.

(8339-8342)

The entoptic sign is rendered erotic, its polarity sexual. The "Mondhof" is no mere "Lufterscheinung," but a "brünstige Vogelschar." The Psyllen and Marsen, attending "die lieblichste Tochter," reaffirm the soft sensuality of the sign, but give reminder of its contrary meaning as militant conflict: the "Kreuz" and "Mond" as embattled Crusaders and Saracens (8372). As Galatea passes in "Farbenspiel," Homunculus, "von Pulsen der Liebe gerührt" (8468), brightens with "herrisches Sehnen" and shatters forth from his confinement: "Jetzt flammt es, nun blitzt es, ergießt sich schon" (8473). Homunculus' dissolution, like the love-engendering touch of Aurora in "Wiederfinden," re-animates the four elements, "Hochgefeiert seid allhier, / Element' ihr alle vier!" (8486-8487). Fire and water commingle in the erotic "Abenteur" that concludes Act II. The leap of Homunculus adds a paradoxical twist to the already paradoxical "stirb und werde" of "Selige Sehnsucht." The "Flammentod" proposed in the ghazal dissolved the corporeal body in the leap into light. Homunculus, however, exists only as bodiless phantom of light until he releases the trapped waves of the glass into the moving waves of the water and unites with the elements to engender corporeal being. The lesson of "Aug in Auge" in looking into the entoptic image, as Goethe explained in his poem to the Countess von Egloffstein, is in the Tätigkeit it reveals to "die kleinen Welten." The Entstehen of Homunculus in the werdende nature of love and life is repeated, exalted, in the transfiguration of Faust. Blinded by care before his death, Faust has sight restored to him as a Doctor Marianus received into the divine radiance. The polarity is complete, not as opposition but as continuum, from the Finsternis of "die Mütter" to the Licht of the "Mater Gloriosa." A final reminder of the damning stasis of saying to the moment, "Verweile," Goethe provided in the vision of the holy Anchorites. Pater Ecstaticus translates divine light into beatific agony and ecstasy: "Ewiger Wonnebrand, / Glühendes Liebeband" (11854-5). Pater Profundus describes light as forming the tetractys of the four elements as a crucifix

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of "allmächtige Liebe/Die alles bildet, alles hegt" (11872-3). Pater Seraphicus sees light as vital animation. Through the "Morgenwölkchen" and through the trees, light sets forth color as a "junge Geisterschar" : they call to him for meaning, for identity, "wo wir wallen,... wer wir sind?" he tells them they are "Mitternachts-Geborne / Halb erschlossen Geist und Sinn," and he offers them the informing sanctuary of his own eyes: "Steigt herab in meiner Augen/Welt- und Erdgemäß Organ" (11906-7). Having contained them in his own vision, he looks afresh at nature; but, "immer werdendes Licht," they rebel at the confinement: "zu düster ist der Ort." Pater Seraphicus sets them free: "Steigt hinan zu höherm Kreise" (11918). The polarity, here Goethe gives us once again the entoptic figure, exists within a halo. Free from his eyes, aloft in "Gottes Gegenwart," the children of light form a circle: Hände verschlinget Freudig zum Ringverein Regt euch und singet Heil'ge Gefühle drein! Göttlich belehret, Dürft ihr vertrauen; Den ihr verehret, Werdet ihr schauen.

(11926-11933)

Here ist the paradox of light and sight: what one sets free, one keeps; what one honors, one beholds. The paradox is inseparable from the metonymy of Goethe's definition: "Die Farben sind Taten des Lichtes, Taten und Leiden." Or, as he phrased it in Elemente der entoptischen Farben: "Was in der Atmosphäre vorgeht, begibt sich gleichfalls in des Menschen Auge." Out of the "chemisches Männlein" Goethe had originally conceived as "Weltkalender," he developed the highly paradoxical voice of liminality: new born yet possessing wisdom of the ages; pure "Geist" yet longing for corporeal fulfillment; alert to the physical world yet able to see into dreams. With the wit of the ghazal and the duplici tous fluctuation of the entoptic apparition, the "chemisches Männlein" became the adept mediator for the journey that transported Faust across the abyss of three thousand years to Helena's side. When Homunculus breathes in organic life, "Hier weht gar eine weiche Luft, / Es grunelt so, und mir behagt der Duft" (8265-8266), he absorbs that same entelechy Goethe had acclaimed in the ghazal, "Alleben": Und sogleich entspringt ein Leben, Schwillt ein heilig-heimlich Wirken, Und es grunelt und es grünet In den irdischen Bezirken.

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101

In the ghazal, the lifeless dust is scattered and blown until the rain storm descends: "Laß mich, daß es grunelt, riechen!" Homunculus becomes the sentient apotheosis of that entelechy. Goethe wrought his Entstehen a full decade after he had finished West-östlicher Divan (1819) and Entoptische Farben (1820). The eighty-one year old poet completed the "Klassische Walpurgisnacht" in 1830. In celebrating the impelling Taten und Leiden of light and darkness, life and death, Goethe drew from entoptics the double image, positive and negative, that created a threshold to color; from the ghazal he took the threshold of the manifold polarities of sensuous mysticism. In this multiple threshold, Homunculus came to life.

IV. Novalis: Transcendental Physics and the Sidereal Man In reading the accounts of Alexander von Humboldt and Johann Wilhelm Ritter, Novalis, while still a student at Freiberg, was intrigued by the flashes of colored lights they reported when testing the galvanic current with electrodes applied to the eye.1 The possibilities of galvanic electricity excited him, yet he recognized with a certain sadness that these experiments also revealed the limitations of human perception. Here was a world of energy and activity beyond the range of the senses: "Wir haben kein electrisches und magnetisches] und galvanisches Auge und O h r . . . Wir vernehmen diese Flüssigkeiten nur indirecte."2 Because man lacks galvanic senses, he is deprived as well of galvanic "Gedanken und Fantasien." As his conviction grew that the "Gedanken und Fantasien" were created by the mind's own galvanic processes, he sought to reveal the galvanic light in a literary apotheosis. In Heinrich von Ofterdingen Novalis describes the release of this energy in three phases : Heinrich's erotic dream of bathing in the liquid light; Fable's purging of the Fates and the galvanic resuscitation of Atlas, the Father, Eros and Freya; and finally, last but also first, the creation of Astralis, the sidereal man.3 Physics and the phenomena of light became for Novalis not merely a prime source, but the very "Mittelpunkt" of his poetic inspiration. Indeed, the scientific approach to the Märchen (Β § 769), he came to regard as the highest poetic endeavor.4 Because the poet could explore

1

2

3 4

Alexander von Humboldt, Versuche über die gereizte Muskel- und Nervenfaser nebst Vermuthungen über den chemischen Proceß des Lebens in der Thier- und Pflanzenwelt, 2 vols. (Possen and Berlin, 1797); Johann Wilhelm Ritter, Beweis, daß ein Beständiger Galvanismus den Lebensproceß in dem Thierreich begleite (Weimar, 1798) and Beiträge zur nähern Kenntniß des Galvanismus, 2vols. (Jena, 1800, 1805). Novalis Schriften, ed. Paul Kluckhohn and Richard Samuel, 4 vols. (Darmstadt: Wissenschaftliche Buchgesellschaft, 1960-1975), III, 97. References to this edition will be cited parenthetically in the text with volume and page number; "Das allgemeine Brouillon" will be indicated: Β §. Novalis, I, 196-197, 313, 317-319, 341-342. Novalis, III, 242-478; "Das allgemeine Brouillon" contains many entries pertinent to the Märchen: see Β §§80, 87, 234, 435, 620, 653, 769, 883, 940, 954, 986, 989, 1011. Luitgard Albrecht, Der magische Idealismus in Novalis' Märchentheorie und Märchen-

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the magic of science, its infinitude of possibilities, he possessed a greater freedom than the theory-bound practitioner: "Der Poët versteht die Natur besser als der wissenschaftliche Kopf" (Β § 1093). Not content to leave this fascination for science in the bliss of ignorance, Novalis proceeded to inform his enthusiasm with meticulous study of physics. This direction was determined in large part by family commitment. 5 His father was director of the salt mines for the Electorate of Saxony. Novalis' studies were expected to include the legal as well as the geological training necessary to an administrative career in mining. At the University of Jena, 1790/1791, Novalis neglected his courses in law, but Schiller's lectures in history and Reinhold's in Kantian philosophy furnished scholarly purpose to the otherwise "herumirrende Tätigkeit" of his first semesters.6 The following year, at Leipzig, the interest in the natural sciences began to grow. The scientific bent, from the very outset, followed in tow of his philosophical studies, which persisted at the University of Wittenberg, where he completed his degree in 1794.7 In November, 1794, the twenty-two-year-old Novalis fell in love with the twelve-year-old Sophie von Kühn. The following March they were engaged. In November, 1795, Sophie was stricken with consumption. In January, 1796, Novalis attended lessons in chemistry from J. G. Wiegleb; then, in February, he assumed his post as assessor at the mines and made plans for extending his education at the mining academy at Freiberg. Sophie died March 19, 1797. Her death overwhelmed him with a gloom of depression which gradually gave way to a mystical faith in her spiritual presence. The mystical turn in his beliefs was accompanied by a determined inquiry into pathological medicine and into the physiology of perception. 8 For Novalis, the link between body and soul, experienced in love, was a scientific certainty to be confirmed in physics and physiology. When Novalis commenced his studies at Freiberg in December, 1797, he was already widely read in the natural sciences. He had attempted to dichtung (Hamburg, 1948). Albrecht cites from the earlier edition of Novalis, Schriften (Leipzig, 1929); Hans-Joachim Mähl provides a conversion table for the "Brouillon" entries in the two editions, Novalis, III, 224. 5 Kluckhohn, "Friedrich von Hardenbergs Entwicklung und Dichtung," in Novalis, I, 1-67; Gerhard Schulz, "Die Berufslaufbahn Friedrich von Hardenbergs (Novalis)," Jahrbuch der deutschen Schillergesellschaft, VII (1963), 253-312. 6 Theodor Haering, Novalis als Philosoph (Stuttgart, 1954), pp. 17-18. 7 Géza von Molnár, Novalis' "Fichte Studies, " The Foundation of his Aesthetics, Stanford Studies in Germanics and Slavics (The Hague, Paris, 1970). 8 Eitel-Fritz Heller, "Die Ursprünge der Krankheitsanschauungen bei Novalis und seine Beziehung zur romantischen Medizin," (diss. Universität Leipzig, 1945).

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order his scientific knowledge in his philosophic notebooks on Fichte, Hemsterhuis, Kant, and Eschenmayer. 9 Although he gave serious attention to the practical demands for his training, he nevertheless endeavored to assimilate his science and philosophy into poetry. In his encyclopedic notebook, the "Allgemeine Brouillon," he recorded: "Jede Wissenschaft wird Poësie - nachdem sie Philosophie geworden ist" (Β §644). The transformation of science into philosophy is an effort evident in many of the notebooks he kept of his Freiberg studies, especially in the "Brouillon" (September 1798/March 1799), but also among his lecture notes, and his notes to Schilling's Von der Weltseele (Hamburg, 1798). The transformation from philosophy into poetry was the concern of his Lehrlinge zu Sais. Just before he began writing his Lehrlinge, Novalis wrote to Friedrich Schlegel a summary of those ideas which had preoccupied him most upon his arrival at Freiberg: Erst Poësie, dann Politik, dann Physik en Masse.... In der Physik bin ich noch in der Gährung. Hauptideen glaub ich gefaßt zu haben - aber hier will ich gleich praktisch auftreten - Zu einem Tractat vom Lichte, ist vieles fertig. Das Licht wird nur der Mittelpunct, von dem aus ich mich in mancherley Richtungen zerstreue. (26 December 1797)

Although the notebooks of this period contain ample matter for the planned "Tractat vom Lichte," Novalis apparently never assembled them into final form. Nor does the Lehrlinge novel, which continued to occupy him through 1799, make much use of his notes on light and color. He describes colors and shadows in only a few scenes. While his allusions to light are not frequent, they are telling, for he uses the perception of light as defining metaphor for the relation of mind and nature, the internal and external worlds. Perception must be educated. The conscious awareness of the senses Novalis explains as light refracting through a mental prism: Durch Übung werden Entwickelungen befördert, und in allen Entwickelungen gehen Teilungen, Zergliederungen vor, die man bequem mit den Brechungen des Lichtstrahls vergleichen kann. So hat sich auch nur allmählich unser Innres in so mannigfaltige Kräfte zerspaltet, und mit fortdauernder Übung wird auch diese Zerspaltung zunehmen. (I, 82)

The refractive capacity of mind may increase, but it may also be retarded. Perhaps, Novalis speculates, it is the sickness of civilization that causes man to lose this prismatic facility of mind: Vielleicht ist es nur krankhafte Anlage der späteren Menschen, wenn sie das Vermögen verlieren, diese zerstreuten Farben ihres Geistes wider zu mischen und nach Belieben den alten einfachen Naturzustand herzustellen, oder neue, mannigfaltige Verbindungen unter ihnen zu bewirken. (I, 82-83) ' Hermann Pixberg, Novalis als Naturphilosoph (Gütersloh, 1928).

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The wisdom of the Teacher at Sais is expressed principally as a power of the eye, a power to relate and to resolve, a power to discover the invisible in the visible. He turns his eye upon nature: Er merkte bald auf die Verbindungen in allem, auf Begegnungen, Zusammentreffungen. N u n sah er bald nichts mehr allein. - In große bunte Bilder drängten sich die Wahrnehmungen seiner Sinne: er hörte, sah, tastete und dachte zugleich. (I, 80)

And upon his apprentices, to see if they see: Ein eignes Licht entzündet sich in seinen Blicken, wenn vor uns nun die hohe Rune liegt, und er in unsern Augen späht, ob auch in uns aufgegangen ist das Gestirn, das die Figur sichtbar und verständlich macht. (I, 79).

When the visiting travellers gather in the temple, the auspicious radiance of the phosphorescent light not only shines upon them, it lights the way into their words: Der Lehrer ließ einen jener seltnen leuchtenden Steine bringen, die man Karfunkel nennt, und ein hellrotes, kräftiges Licht goß sich über die verschiednen Gestalten und Kleidungen a u s . . . und eine kühlende Flamme aus Kristallschalen in die Lippen der Sprechenden hineinloderte. (I, 106)

The debate over the mysteries of nature is delivered by spokesmen for Fichte, for Schelling, for Goethe, and the master Teacher of the Temple is modeled after Abraham Gottlob Werner teaching his "Oryktognostisches System." Hidden in the manifold complexity of nature is a pattern, a runic message: to decipher the secrets of this "Chiffernsprache" the apprentices at Sais gather before their teacher to study structure and strata "in Kristallen und in Steinbildungen... im Innern und Äußern der Gebirge... in den Lichtern des Himmels, auf berührten und gestrichenen Scheiben von Pech und Glas, in den Feilspänen um den Magnet" (I, 79). The ancient Nile flows from Sais directly into the Freiberger Muida, for these are the inquiries into geology, crystallogy, mineralogy, meteorology, electrostatics and magnetism that Novalis studied under Werner, Lempe, and Lampadius. Novalis left Freiberg in May, 1799, to resume his post as assessor for the mines. Before he left he found a new love, not a substitute for the heavenly Sophie, but a help-mate and companion in this world. In December, 1798, he was engaged to Julie Charpentier, daughter of Professor Charpentier. The manuscript of the Lehrlinge was put aside toward the end of 1799. In October, he wrote "Christenheit oder Europa." In November, he met the Romantic physicist, Johann Wilhelm Ritter. The continuation of the Lehrlinge might well have featured such speakers as "Göthe, Schelling, Ritter." From these three Novalis developed his ideas on galvanic light and perception. One note indicates that he intended to involve them as characters discussing

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"pneumatische Chemie" and physics, and speculating "Ob der Naturlehre eine wahre Einheit zum Grunde liegt" (II, 669). Perhaps the phenomena of light, as explained by Goethe, Schelling, and Ritter, would have had special import in the intended "Erscheinung der Isis," the visit to the "Werkstatt des Archaeus," or the immanence of the "Messias der Natur" (I, 111). With the beginning of the new year, Novalis turned his literary attention to the "Hymnen an die Nacht," in which the polarities of dark and light attain a mystical and paradoxical meaning. From the end of January through the beginning of April, 1800, he drafted all of "Die Erwartung" and the first section of "Die Erfüllung" of Heinrich von Ofterdingen, the novel he hoped would counter Goethe's Wilhelm Meister.10 Goethe's role in the Lehrlinge zu Sais might well have taken the shape that Novalis describes in his letter to Caroline Schlegel (20 January 1799). Here he speaks of the "heilige Weg zur Physik." Goethe, he says, "soll der Liturg dieser Physik werden - er versteht vollkommen den Dienst im Tempel" (IV, 276). The critique "Über Goethe" (II, 640-642), written August/September, 1798, reveals what Novalis finds wrong with the devotion to the temple. Goethe has become too orthodox, too much the "praktischer Dichter"; his works are like an English merchant's wares, "höchst einfach, nett, bequem und dauerhaft." Goethe was too much like the priest in Schiller's "Das verschleierte Bild zu Sais," utterly obedient to the rites of the temple. Novalis' sympathies are with the youth who seeks the truth behind the veil. The Märchen in Lehrlinge zu Sais closes when Hyacinth, who has abandoned his beloved Rosebud to seek "die Mutter der Dinge... die verschleierte Jungfrau," gradually recovers from the delirium of his quest, and finds himself, in his dream of "unendlicher Sehnsucht," before the veiled virgin: "da hob er den leichten, glänzenden Schleier, und Rosenbliitchen sank in seine Arme" (I, 95). Novalis provided a similar solution to the mystery of the veil in his aphorism on the Delphic γνώθι σεαύτον: "Einem gelang es - er hob den Schleyer der Göttin zu Sais - Aber was sah er? er sah - Wunder des Wunders - Sich Selbst" (II, 584).11 Rather than lift the forbidden veil, Goethe is content to decorate the altar: In seinen physicalischen Studien wird es recht klar, daß es seine Neigung ist eher etwas Unbedeutendes ganz fertig zu machen - ihm die höchste Politur und Bequemlichkeit zu

10

11

Hans-Joachim Beck, Friedrich von Hardenberg "Oeconomie des Styls." Die "Wilhelm Meister"-Rezeption im "Heinrich von Ofterdingen" (Bonn: Bouvier Verlag, 1976), pp. 11-56. Cf. "Kenne dich selbst" (Freiberg, 11 May 1798), Novalis, I, 403-404.

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geben, als eine Welt anzufangen und etwas zu thun, wovon man vorauswissen kann, daß man es nicht vollkommen ausführen wird, daß es gewiß ungeschickt bleibt, und daß man es nie darinn zu einer meisterhaften Fertigkeit b r i n g t . . . . Seine Betrachtungen des Lichts, der Verwandlung der Pflanzen und der Insecten sind Bestätigungen und zugleich die überzeugendsten Beweise, daß auch der vollkommne Lehrvortrag in das Gebiet des Künstlers gehört. Auch dürfte man im gewissen Sinn mit Recht behaupten, daß Göthe der erste Physiker seiner Zeit sey - und in der That Epoke in der Geschichte der Physik mache. (II, 640)

In science, Goethe would not risk what he could not perfect. Novalis, of course, knew a Goethe who had not yet sent Faust in quest of Helen, daring the infinite shadows to seek out the primal "Mütter," a Goethe who had not yet raised his powers of polemic against Newton in the Farbenlehre (1810). In his Beiträge zur Optik (1791 and 1792), Goethe's "Betrachtungen des Lichts" are cautious indeed in their opposition to that "tiefsinniger Mann" who constructed the impregnable "Lehrgebäude, gleichsam als eine Feste mitten im Felde dieser Wissenschaft." Nevertheless, Novalis recognized in these carefully constructed exercises with the prism a formal precision of experiment and demonstration that deserved respect. Still, Goethe kept the veil of his goddess primly in place, as if it were a moral trespass to reach within its folds. "Wie der Physiker Göthe sich zu den übrigen Physikern verhält, so der Dichter zu den übrigen Dichtern." Even as a poet Goethe conservatively constrains his passions within the formal order of "Kunstverstand." The ineffable, unquenchable "Sehnsucht" is suppressed. For Goethe, "Das Märchen" (1795) was a rare excursion into the "Inkommensurable." Because Goethe's "Märchen" concludes with the glorification of the temple, "der besuchteste auf der ganzen Erde," in fulfillment of the prophecy that the temple should arise, Novalis may well have assumed that Goethe thought of himself as liturgist of the temple.12 To the attempts to interpret the gold-generated light of the Serpent and Irrlichter, the magic lamp of the Old Man, the shadow of the Giant, the "feuerfarbiger Schleier" and the life-and-death touch of the Lily, the secrets of the four metal Kings, the resurrection of the underground temple, Goethe answered that a hundred meanings were possible. To Humboldt he wrote: "Es war freilich eine schwere Aufgabe, zugleich bedeutend und bedeutungslos zu sein" (27 May 1796).13 When he resolved to close his "Unterhaltungen deutscher Ausgewanderten" with "Das Märchen," he wrote to Schiller "es würde

12

13

Friedrich Hiebel, "Goethe's Märchen in the Light of Novalis," PMLA LXIII (1948), 918-934. Goethe, Werke ( = W A ) (Weimar: Hermann Böhlau, 1887-1919); IV. Abtheilung: Briefe, Bd. 11, 77.

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vielleicht nicht übel sein, wenn sie durch ein Produkt der Einbildungskraft gleichsam ins Unendliche ausliefen."14 Manifold meaning, Novalis would agree, is necessary for the "Mathematik der Poesie" (III, 19), for multiplying the imagination to the infinite. Yet Novalis saw Goethe so committed to allegory, that the veil itself, not what it concealed, provides the language of the "Märchen." An allegorical code mantles the mythic imagination. Like the priest and the youth in Schiller's "Das verschleierte Bild zu Sais," or the Sorcerer and his Apprentice in Goethe's "Der Zauberlehrling," the plight of the Prince and the Lily presents a stern moral against trespassing into magic and mystery. "Göthes Märchen ist eine erzählte Oper" (II, 535), Novalis wrote, no doubt impressed by the similarities to the semiotics of freemasonry in Schikaneder's "Zauberflöte." 15 Novalis interpreted the dialogue of the Irrlichter and the Serpent in terms of perception and sensory response: the mouth speaks, the ear devours; the eyes radiate, the eyes absorb (Β § 435). The shadow of the Giant, Novalis likens to the powerful imagination cast by the intelligence (Β §737). Goethe, of course, petrifies the Giant into a sundial. Novalis was no doubt delighted by Goethe's use of the "galvanische Kette" to revive the dead: the Serpent bites into her tail, symbol of eternity, and martyrs herself to the touch of the Lily in order that the dead Prince might be revived; the Lily closes the circuit by touching the Serpent with her left hand and the Prince with her right: "Lilie kniete nieder und berührte die Schlange und den Leichnam. Im Augenblick schien dieser in das Leben überzugehen." Novalis' fascination with the merger of science into Märchen was also treated by Goethe's frequent play on optics: the hawk with the mirror catching sunbeams, radiant sunlight and glories, reflection and refraction, phosphorescence, lightning and electrical flashes. Novalis praised the "Scientifische Behandlung der Märchen - Sie sind im höchsten Grad lehrreich und Ideenvoll" (Β § 769). He was especially pleased with "Das physicalische Wundermärchen der Genlis" because of the "artiger Versuch" of transforming the natural marvels of scientific experimentation into the enchantments of the Märchen (Β § 895). Novalis' own chemistry teacher, Johann Wiegleb, was noted for his demonstration of scientific magic, and he had authored a number of popular books explaining applications of science to parlor magic: Die natürliche Magie (Berlin, 1799; 2nd ed. 2 vols, 1782-1786); Onomatologia curiosa artifiosa et magica, oder natürliches Zauberlexikon (Nürnberg, 1784); Unterhal14 15

WA, IV, Bd. 10, 286. Max Diez, "Metapher und Märchengestalt. III. Novalis und das allegorische Märchen," PMLA XLVIII (1933), 488-507.

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tende Naturwunder, klingende und brüllende, brennende und feuerspielende Höhlen, Feuertyphon oder Feuerwirbel (Erfurt, 1788)." For Novalis, science and magic had a common source in human consciousness : both were born of the primal wonder with which man beholds the world. Their separation was the result of the false division of body and soul, the inner and outer world. Verstand and Einbildungskraft were set at odds. Because the Märchen celebrates the primal wonder, it provides the perfect setting for the reunion of science and magic. "Sehnsucht" was the driving impulse to regain unification, and the Märchen, more than any other literary genre, was suited to the exposition, "die Ergießungen der Sehnsucht," such as Novalis describes in the reunion of Hyacinth and Rosebud. Ask for an example of Romantic "Sehnsucht," and the first ready answer is likely to be the "blaue Blume" of Heinrich von Ofterdingen. In this poetic novel, the pivotel episode, a Märchen, has continued to baffle readers, and critics have chosen either to abridge their commentary or to avoid the chapter altogether. Told by Klingsohr, the Goethe-like master poet, the Märchen, is structurally central, for it provides the transition from "Die Erwartung" (Part One) to "Die Erfüllung" (Part Two); it is also thematically central, for it presents the mystery of Berührung and Ubergang, the connection of body and soul, poetry and science, the inner and outer worlds. Klingsohr tells his tale in celebration of the betrothal of his daughter Mathilde to Heinrich. When the tale is over, Heinrich stands a lone pilgrim, grieving the death of his bride. When Emil Staiger brought out his edition, Novalis: Gedichte, Romane (Zürich, 1968), complete with introduction and interpretive commentary, he deliberately excluded "Klingsohrs Märchen" as "unverständlich" even for scholars.17 Johannes Hegener, at the outset of his account of "die wissenschaftspoetischen Strukturen" of "Klingsohrs Märchen," cites Staiger's arbitrary omission, but when it comes to explaining the poetic or scientific context of Fable's descent to the Fates in the arena of black light, and Fable's ploy with the lamp of tarantula oil and the dresses woven of spider-web, Hegener has nothing to say; he does drop a footnote: "Die Beschreibung der Schattenwelt des Märchen wird auf Oxydationsvorgänge zu beziehen sein."18 Yet even here Hegener does not try to make interpretive sense out of the relevance of

16

17 18

Johann Christian Poggendorff, Handwörterbuch zur Geschichte der exacten Wissenschaften, 2 vols. (Leipzig: Barth, 1863), II, 1320-1321. Emil Staiger, Novalis: Gedichte - Romane (Zürich: Atlantis Verlag, 1968), p.48. Johannes Heger, Die Poetisierung der Wissenschaften bei Novalis (Bonn: Bouvier Verlag, 1975), p. 174, 223-224, 481.

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oxydation to Fable's venture into the shadow world. Walter Wetzels, in "Klingsohrs Märchen als Science Fiction," provides an excellent account of the three scenes of galvanic resuscitation, and he explains the function of the turmaline, the so-called lapis electricus, in gathering the ashes of the cremated Mother. 19 But he, too, completely ignores Fable's encounter with the Fates under the black light. Paul Kluckhohn gives a fine reading of the Märchen, which he considers both "die symbolische Darstellung eigenen Erlebens" and "eine tiefsinnige Mythe des Weltgeschehens mit eschatologischen Prophetien in einem Rahmen, den das alte Märchenmotiv von der Erlösung der Königsbraut gab." 20 Because Eros is distracted from his mission, the responsibility for "Erlösung" falls to Fable. When Kluckhohn describes Fable's "Erlösungsfahrt," he does not mention the positive/negative inversion of light and darkness in the colonnaded enclosure of the Fates, and he resorts to Wilhelm Dilthey's clever, but inaccurate, guess in defining the tarantulas as "die Leidenschaften, die in der Gegenwart des Eros zum Vorschein kommen und die die Parzen brauchen, um den Lebensfaden des Menschen zu verkürzen." 21 Three difficulties stand in the way of Dilthey's explanation: (1) Novalis has given a separate account of "die Leidenschaften" born of Eros and Ginnistan ("Die Früchte jener geheimnisvollen Nacht, waren eine zahlreiche Menge wunderlicher Kinder, die ihrem Großvater ähnlich sehn, and nach ihm genannt sind [Eros' Father = sensual being]. Geflügelt wie ihr Vater, begleiten sie ihn ständig, und plagen die Armen, die sein Pfeil trifft."); (2) not Eros but Fable with her lyre conjures the tarantulas "zum Vorschein"; (3) the Fates may need the tarantula-oil for their "schwarzbrennende Lampe," but, as Fable's conquest should make clear, they neither need nor want the tarantulas she brings them. John Neubauer, in Bifocal Vision, Novalis' Philosophy of Nature and Disease (Chapel Hill, 1971), charts with clarity and precision the complex cross-currents of science, philosophy, and poetry in Novalis' studies, yet he limits his literary investigation to Die Lehrlinge zu Sais, with the argument that in the later works, " H y m n e n an die N a c h t " and Heinrich von Ofterdingen, "the 'poetic synthesis'... does not include the empirical world and the realm

" Walter D . Wetzels, "Klingsohrs Märchen als Science Fiction," Monatshefte, LXV, N o . 2 (1973), 167-175. 20 Novalis, I, 43—47. Kluckhohn's error in including turmaline among "die drei Elemente des Galvanismus," p. 46, is corrected in Wetzels' essay. 21 Wilhelm Dilthey, " N o v a l i s , " Preußisches Jahrbuch, X V (1865), 596-650, reprinted in Das Erlebnis und die Dichtung (Leipzig, 1906; Göttingen: Vandenhoeck, 1965).

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of the sciences in the way in which the 'Brouillon' and Die Lehrlinge had originally set out." 22 To be sure, the "poetic synthesis" in the Klingsohr-Märchen is considerably different from the Hyazinth-und-Rosenblüthe-Märchen, or any other episode in Die Lehrlinge, still it is rich in its appropriations from the "Brouillon." Since Novalis gives such abundant evidence of the "scientifische Behandlung der Märchen" (Β § 769), the interpretation of Fable's adventure might well begin with the scientific phenomena described in the encounter with the Fates. Once Novalis' scientific references are determined, his symbolic or mythopoetic transformation ought to become clear. In terms of the science Novalis knew, what explanation can be given for his description of negative light? Alle Figuren waren hier dunkel. Die Luft war wie ein ungeheurer Schatten; am Himmel stand ein schwarzer strahlender Körper. Man konnte alles auf das deutlichste unterscheiden, weil jede Figur einen andern Anstrich von Schwarz zeigte, und einen lichten Schein hinter sich warf; Licht und Schatten schienen hier ihre Rollen vertauscht zu haben. (I, 301)

The modern reader should recognize that this scene accurately describes a photographic negative. Historically impossible? Not at all.23 As early as 1727, Heinrich Schulz, aware as many another that silver tarnishes when exposed to light and that certain silver salts readily blacken, placed a plate coated with "Hornsilber" within a camera obscura in the attempt to obtain a permanent image.24 In 1777, Carl Wilhelm Scheele reported that the prismatic colors did not evenly tarnish plates coated with silver nitrate, "daß die Schwärzung im Violett schneller erfolge, als in den andern Farben." Violet rays have the strongest blackening effect, red the weakest.25 Thus Novalis could observe that "jede Figur einen andern Anstrich von Schwarz zeigte." These photochemical experiments with the camera obscura were frequently repeated. Jean Senebier timed the length of exposure for each prismatic color to work its darkening effect.26 Miss Fulhame compared the effects of light and water on the

22

23

24

25

26

John Neubauer, Bifocal Vision, Novalis' Philosophy of Nature and Disease (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1971), p. 114. R . B . Litchfield, Tom Wedgwood, the First Photographer (London, 1903); Wedgwood was introduced to photochemistry through Thomas Beddoes, The Chemical Essays of Charles-William Scheele (London, 1786). "Instrumental Optics," in The History of Science in the Nineteenth Century, ed. René Taton, trans. A . J . Pomerans (London: Thames and Hudson, 1965), p. 145. Karl Wilhelm Scheele, Sämmtliche physikalische und chemische Werke, ed. S. F. Hermbstädt, 2 vols. (Berlin, 1793), I, 28-41. Jean Senebier, "Versuche über die chemische Wirkung des Sonnenlichts," Annalen der Physik, II (1799), 271.

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oxydation and desoxydation processes. Novalis quotes from the French review of Miss Fulhame's Essay on Combustion: "La Lumière agit de même, parce qu'elle decompose l'eau. On sait que les oxides blancs d'argent, exposés a la lumière, deviennent cendrés et quelquefois paroissent se revivifier" (III, 76). Novalis also knew Ritter's account of these experiments, in "Madame Fulhame's Versuch über die Wiederherstellung der Metalle."27 Quoting from A. G. Lentin's translation,28 Ritter showed that photochemical reaction, the brightening and darkening of metal plates described in Chapter 8, depended on a galvanic relationship of the metal with the metallic salts in solution; Ritter presumed "eine starke Anziehungskraft" was activated by the exposure to light. Fable enters a camera obscura and beholds the inversion of light into negative impressions. This is a crucial, yet but a single piece of the puzzle. Where has Novalis located this camera in his mythical macrocosm? Fable has escaped from the vengeful Scribe and has entered the arena of negative images after descending the hidden back-stairs of Sophia's altar. In the causal sequence of the Märchen, Ginnistan's seduction of Eros is followed by the Scribe's revolution in the household. After Eros succumbs to the "wollüstige Genüsse an den reizenden Busen seiner Begleiterin," the Scribe gains his militant power and throws the Mother into chains and puts the Father on prison-fare of bread and water. He then pursues Fable, who hides behind the altar of wisdom. The Scribe in his rage destroys the altar, but gone is the "dunkle Schale mit klarem Wasser" with which Sophia had erased all the untruths from the Scribe's records; gone, too, is the goddess of wisdom. Sophia's altar is the seat of perception; the hidden passage takes Fable into the camera obscura of the eye. From Scheele's account of the photochemistry of light, Samuel Thomas Sömmering had developed his explanation of the light-sensitivity of the retina. Sömmering's Vom Baue des menschlichen Körpers (Frankfurt 1791-1796, 4 vols.) describes his discovery of the papille, the "Öffnung in der Netzhaut" through which he presumed that the images of the retina were transferred into the brain.

27

21

Ritter, "Madame Fulhame's Versuche über die Wiederherstellung der Metalle," Allgemeines Journal der Chemie, I (1798), 420-444. Miss Fulhame, An Essay on Combustion, with a view to a new art of dying and painting (London, 1794); trans. Augustin Gottfried Lentin, Versuche über die Wiederherstellung der Metalle durch Wasserstoffgas, Phosphor, Schwefel, geschwefeltes Wasserstoffgas, Kohle, Licht, und Säuren (Göttingen: Dietrich, 1798); for Lentin's section on "Licht," see pp. 211-232. Still another account of the negative image, as "Ubersetzung" of "Lichtstoff" within the silver, Novalis had at hand in his copy of Karl von Eckartshausen, Die neuesten Entdeckungen über Licht, Wärme, and Feuer für Liebhaber der Physik und Chemie, Bd.I, Heft 2 (München: Joseph Lindauer, 1799), pp. 121-123.

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In Über das Organ der Seele (Königsberg, 1796), which along with the four-volume study was also in Novalis' library, Sömmering argued "daß sich die "Wurzel der Sehnerven in der Feuchte der Hirnhöhlen baden"; moreover, that "Gesichts-Empfindungen... in der Feuchtigkeit der Hirnhöhlen - entstehen." Especially important to Novalis' concept of a "galvanisches Auge," Sömmering affirms that this "animirte Flüssigkeit" is the natural organ to receive the energies propagated through the "Aether": "Und was ist der Aether," Sömmering asks in a rhetorical question that absorbs all objections, "welcher zufolge der Gedanken eines Leibnitz - Newton - Euler - Kant - die wichtigsten Urbewegungen im Universum verrichtet, anders als eine Flüssigkeit?"29 For the repetition of images within the "Höhle" the Fates have their "TarantelOel." As described in Klingsohr's Märchen, the chamber of the eye is surrounded by a "prächtige Kolonnade" with openings in the "Felsenklüfte" on opposite sides, the pupille and papille. Fable finds this latter opening guarded by a Sphinx. The passage-way from the camera obscura of the eye leads Fable into the cellula phantastica of the brain.30 "Sie trat in die ungeheure Höhle, und ging fröhlich auf die alten Schwestern zu, die bei der kärglichen Nacht einer schwarzbrennenden Lampe ihr wunderliches Geschäft trieben." Consciousness is controlled by the Fates. The "körperliche Augen" are subject to such constraints as darkness and distance; the "geistige Augen" are limited by fear and ignorance. Thus in the "Schaukammer des Gehirns," all perception may fall under the spell of fatality. The Fates consider Fable too frivolous and disruptive to remain in their chamber, but they allow her to spin beyond the threshold; "in der Nebenkammer bricht ein Strahl der Oberwelt durch die Felsritzen." Clotho, Lachesis, and Atropos spin, measure, and cut the thread of life. Fable sets singing to her task, spinning the many scattered ends into one thread, one life. Spinning is the natural occupation for Fable. As the daughter of Ginnistan,31 the fantasy, she is the born spinner of tales. Novalis indulges a multiple pun on spinnen, which

29

30

31

Samuel Thomas Sömmering, Über das Organ der Seele (Königsberg, 1796; reprint, Amsterdam: E . J . Bonset, 1966), pp. 21-22, 41. Heinrich Schipperges, Welt des Auges (Freiburg: Verlag Herder, 1978), documents the persistence of the ventricular (aula, cellula, camera) theory of the brain through the Romantic period; see esp. pp. 30-38. Novalis has the name from "Dchinnistan, oder auserlesene Feen- und Geistermärchen" (Winterthur, 1785); from this collection Novalis intended to use "Nadir und Nadine" in Heinrich von Ofterdingen, Part Two (III, 674); Fable's descent into the "Höhle" has analogs in "Stein der Weisen" and "Der eiserne Armleuchter," Wielands Werke, ed. Siegfried Mauermann (Berlin: Wiedmannsche Verlagsbuchhandlung, 1938) XVIII, 116-119, 281-282.

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means to spin a thread or a fable, as well as to imagine, to phantasize; too, when Fable sings as she spins, Spinne appear. From her vantage in the eye, Fable can peer out into the night-time sky: "Sie sah durch die Öffnung hinaus, und erblickte das Sternbild des Phönixes." The Phoenix, bird of regeneration, is an apt contrast to the Sphinx, torpid and sullen: "sie mußte zu viel gegessen haben, sie konnte nicht aufstehen." As Fable sings and spins within the optical chamber, larvae, like a swarm of glow-worms, begin to creep «-through the papille, stirring phantom lights on the retina. Just as the glimmering larvae are on the verge of overwhelming the Fates in their "Höhle," the Scribe arrives with an "Alraunwurzel," the "Galgenmännchen" or mandrake of nightshade, and drives off Fable's larvae of light: "Die Lichterchen verkrochen sich in die Felsklüfte und die Höhle wurde ganz hell, weil die schwarze Lampe in der Verwirrung umgefallen und ausgelöscht war." Fable defends herself from the Scribe by threatening to scratch out his "geistreiches A u g e . . . du hast nicht viel mehr zu verlieren." Without their "schwarzbrennende Lampe," the Fates, "die sich die Augen wischten," are temporarily blinded. The negative light is restored, and Fable is sent forth to fetch tarantula oil for the lamp, while the Scribe exults that Eros is wreaking such agonies with his darts of love that the Fates will be busy cutting short threads of life. In malicious triumph he reveals that the Mother, "die euch so oft zwang, die Fäden länger zu spinnen, wird morgen ein Raub der Flammen." Fable now assumes the "Erlösungsfahrt" that Eros could not complete. Here Novalis shares Blake's conviction: If the doors of perception were cleansed everything would appear to man as it is, infinite. For man has closed himself up till he sees all things thro' narrow chinks of his caverns. 32

In completing her mission to cleanse "the doors of perception," Fable travels not through the eye, but through the ventricular recesses of the brain. In the "Hintergründe der Höhle," Fable finds the trap-door that opens directly into the realm of Arctur. "Dreimal werde ich bitten," Fable tells Arctur, "wenn ich zum vierten Male komme, so ist die Liebe vor der T ü r . " Her first request is for the lyre with which she lulls the mischievous Eros to sleep in the embrace of Ginnistan. As she plays upon the lyre, the tarantulas spin "ein glänzendes N e t z " and dance

32

William Blake, "The Marriage of Heaven and Hell" (1793), plate 14, in The Poetry and Prose of William Blake, ed. David Erdman (New York: Doubleday, 1970), p. 39. See: Joachim Schulz, Blake and Novalis: A Comparison of Romanticism's High Arguments (Frankfurt/aM: Lang, 1978).

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"lebhaft nach dem Takte." Like the pied-piper, Fable leads the procession of spiders with the enchantment of music, "und die Taranteln folgten auf schnellgesponnenen Fäden den bezaubernden Tönen." The Scribe fulfills his threat: the Mother is thrown into the flames. The fire rages with such fury that the sun itself is eclipsed and falls like a burntout cinder into the sea. The flames rise as a new light to bring the juvenescence of Spring to Arctur's frozen realm. The Scribe and his followers are terrified at the awful fire and burn themselves in the vain effort to quench the flames. Fable captures them with the web of the tarantulas, and bitten by the spiders they fall to the mad dance. Fable repeats this ceremony in the chamber of the Fates. "Die Bösen tanzen, die Guten ruhn," Fable tells Arctur when she returns through the trapdoor. H e r second request is for "Feuerblumen" to weave into the spiderweb dancing-gowns for the Fates. The "Feuerblumen" are provided by the "Blumengärtner" Zinc. Again Novalis puns, for Zinkblumen or "flowers of zinc" is the name for the clusters of zinc oxide, the white pigment used in paints. Novalis describes the production as "Blumen die im Feuer wachsen." Dressed in their fire-beflowered new spider-web gowns, the Fates continue to dance their mad tarantella until they are devoured by "Kreuzspinne." The portals of vision are now free: "Fabel sah durch die Felsenkluft hinaus, und erblickte den Perseus mit dem großen eisernen Schilde." Before she had beheld the constellation of Phoenix in the southern hemisphere, now she beholds the constellation of Perseus in the northern sky. The scissors of Atropos fly through space to cling magnetically to Perseus' shield. Fable once more reports to Arctur: "Der Flachs ist versponnen. Das Leblose ist wieder entseelt. Das Lebendige wird regieren, und das Leblose bilden und gebrauchen. Das Innere wird offenbart, und das Äußere verborgen." Her third request is for the aid of Zinc, Gold, and Turmaline. In the "Brouillon" (Β § 806), Novalis cites Aepinus, Abhandlung von Turmalin,33 and refers to experiments with the crystals. During his chemistry lessons with Wiegleb, Novalis may have experimented with turmaline, for Wiegleb had written on "Stangenschörl" and "Strahlschörl," how they accumulated electricity through heating as well as through friction, how they could attract and repel, and h o w they could charge various powders into "Lichtenbergische Figuren." 34 "Der Turmalin," Novalis wrote in his "Grosses Physikalisches Studienheft," "ist beständig magnetisch und electrisch zugleich - er hat die stärkste Erregbarkeit gegen beyde Kräfte" (III, 63).

53 34

Wetzeis, pp. 171-172. Wiegleb, "Chemische Untersuchung des Strahlschörls," Crell's Annalen (1785); "Chemische Untersuchung des schwarzen Stangenschörls," Crell's Beyträge, I (1785).

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Following Ritter's account of the galvanic process, Novalis has Gold and Zinc aid in the resuscitation of Atlas, the Father, and Freya. Fable takes with her the vessel of water from the "dunkle Schale" which Sophia had entrusted to Ginnistan. Fable and her companions journey around the world. "Turmalin sammelte sorgfältig die auffliegende Asche." The Mother's ashes are mixed with Sophia's water and drunk in a communion of transsubstance: "Alle kosteten den göttlichen Trank, und vernahmen die freundliche Begrüßung der Mutter in ihrem Innern, mit unsäglicher Freude." When they come to Atlas, Gold and Zinc provide the electrodes: "Gold legte ihm eine Münze in den Mund, und der Blumengärtner schob eine Schüssel unter seine Lenden." Sophia's water serves as electrolyte. The two metals, "Leiter erster und zweiter Klasse," plus the "feuchter Leiter," create the "dreifache Verbindung" of a simple battery: Gold the negative pole; Zinc, the positive pole. As soon as the water is poured, the electric circuit is complete: "Sowie das Wasser über das Auge in den Mund und herunter über ihn in die Schüssel flöß, zuckte ein Blitz des Lebens ihm in allen Muskeln. Er schlug die Augen auf und hob sich rüstig empor." The revivification of the dead Prince through the "dreifache Verbindung" of the Lily and the Serpent in Goethe's "Das Märchen" mimics the galvanic process, but Novalis gives more precise attention to the details. The excitation of muscular response and the "electrische Zerlegung" of water into oxygen und hydrogen seemed to approach the secret of life. In his "Chymischer Heft" at Freiberg, Novalis had noted: "Wenn man die Kunst zu azotiren, zu hydrogeniren und zu Carbonisiren so gut nachzumachen wüßte, wie das Säuren, so hätten wir vielleicht die Kunst, lebendige Wesen zu machen, in unsrer Gewalt" (III, 39—40). Similarly, in his "Grosses Physikalisches Heft," he speculated that isolated organic particles might be united into a living organism through the chemical excitation of semen under a galvanic charge: "könnte man diese [thierische Stoffe] verbinden und reitzen durch Saamen, so könnte man vielleicht thierische Wesen erzeugen Beyhülfe der Electricitaet und d[es] Galvanismus" (III, 59). The galvanic process is repeated with the Father and with Freya, but here Novalis provides erotic amplification. The Father, already identified in the Märchen as sensual being, is revived as the bridegroom of Ginnistan; Ginnistan closes the circuit by placing her hand upon the heart of her beloved: "Die Kette [Zinc] berührte die Flut [Gold], ihre Hand sein Herz; er erwachte und zog die entzückte Braut an seine Brust." Eros and Freya are both electrically charged. Freya is first seen in the opening of the Märchen glowing like an electrophor as her maidens rub her naked limbs: "Nach allen Seiten strömte unter den Händen der Mädchen das reizende Licht von ihr aus, was den Palast so

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117

wundersam erleuchtete." When the old soldier, Iron, approaches her couch, his shield raised before his eyes, Freya stimulates an electric response: "Sie ergriff seine Hand, drückte sie mit Zärtlichkeit an ihren himmlischen Busen und rührte seinen Schild an. Seine Rüstung klang, und eine durchdringende Kraft beseelte seinen Körper. Seine Augen blitzten und das Herz pochte hörbar an den Panzer. Die schöne Freya schien heiterer, und das Licht ward brennender, das von ihr ausströmte." The journey north to the couch of Freya begins for Eros when the Father brings to his cradle a splinter of Iron's sword, which the old soldier had thrown from the palace window. It crossed the sky and shattered like a meteor upon the mountains. In his "Physikalische Bemerkungen," Novalis had formulated Ritter's account of the magnetic action of the diamond as "Magnetnadel, die sich in den Schwanz beißt." 35 In the Märchen, Ginnistan bends the magnetic splinter into a serpent ring, an ouroboros like Goethe's Serpent. When the babe Eros takes the ring in hand, he matures at once into a bold youth eager to follow the northward impulse. At the close of the Märchen, Eros' quest is consummated in the powerful galvanic kiss. "Gold hat ihm eine Kette gegeben, die mit einem Ende in das Meer hinunterreicht und mit dem andern um seine Brust geschlungen ist." Eros enters the chamber of Freya with the hilt of Iron's sword at his breast and the point toward the slumbering Freya: "Plötzlich geschah ein gewaltiger Schlag. Ein heller Funken fuhr von der Prinzessin nach dem Schwerte; das Schwert und die Kette leuchteten... Eros ließ das Schwert fallen, flog auf die Prinzessin zu, und küßte feurig ihre süßen Lippen. Sie schlug ihre großen dunkeln Augen auf, und erkannte den Geliebten. Ein langer Kuß versiegelte den ewigen Bund." Nothing remains of the Fates but a game of chess, and their realm in the "Hirnhöhle" is transformed into a theater of delight. Because the Märchen serves a pivotal function in structure and theme, it echoes and transforms the narrative world in which it participates. Moments of Heinrich's experience are recognizably present in Klingsohr's tale, and Novalis intended to draw these parallels more fully into the "Herstellung der Märchenwelt" in Part Two, for he sketches the

35

Novalis, III, 608 and 1042η; Novalis wrote to Julius Wilhelm von Oppel (December 1799), Ritter "erzählte mir unter andern von höchstmerkwürdigen Versuchen, die der französische Chemiker Guyton über die Verbrennung des Diamants angestellt und in einer eignen Abh[andlung] beschrieben habe," IV, 299. See L. W. Gilbert's reports on Louis Bernard Guyton de Morveau, "Versuche über das Verbrennen des Diamanten" and "Electrisches Verhalten des Diamanten," Annalert der Physik, II (1799), 387 ff. and 470 ff.

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identities of the characters in this transformation: "Klingsohr ist der König von Atlantis. Heinrich's Mutter ist Phantasie. Der Vater ist der Sinn. Schwaning ist der Mond. . . . Der Graf von Hohenzollern und die Kaufleute kommen auch wieder. N u r nicht sehr streng allegorisch. Kaiser Friedrich ist Arctur" (III, 672-673). Like the strange book which Heinrich finds in the Hermit's cave, the Märchen, too, contains pictures mirroring events of his life, yet in altered costume (I, 264). Eros in his northward journey recapitulates Heinrich's southward journey. In the form of his Mother, Ginnistan takes Eros to her Father's court on the Moon; Heinrich's Mother takes him to meet her Father, Schwaning, in Augsburg. As Heinrich is bewildered by the festivity, Eros is dazzled by the phantasmagoria in the "Schatzkammer." The Märchen begins with the winter solstice: as Iron beats thrice upon his shield, the "rötliches Licht" and "milchblauer Schimmer" of the aurora borealis quicken the northern sky and radiate from the "durchsichtige Mauern" of Arctur's palace of ice. Within the crystalline interior, Freya glows with "reizendes Licht" beneath the caressing hands of her maidens. Heinrich's adventure begins upon the summer solstice: in his "Johannisnachtstraum," he finds within a cave a sparkling fountain of light; when he dips his naked limbs into the shimmering waves, he feels the glowing solution pressing against his body with a feminine caress. Eros bathes in the "gefährliche Wellen"; and Heinrich swims in "eine Auflösung reizender Mädchen." The Märchen is not in itself the "Apotheose der Poesie" that Novalis promised in his letter to Tieck (23 February 1800). N o r is it "die Wunderwelt" that he hoped to reveal in Heinrich's "Erfüllung" as poet. But it does provide a threshold for Heinrich's progress into a "höheres Märchen." Fable has cleared perception of the grim Fates. Eros has united with Freya. Nevertheless, this is Klingsohr's Märchen, and Klingsohr himself has half disowned his own narrative as "was ich noch in ziemlich jungen Jahren machte, wovon es auch noch deutlich Spuren an sich trägt." In Chapters 7 and 8, Klingsohr, as master poet, defines for Heinrich the precepts of poetry. Klingsohr is very much the spokesman for those characteristics of Goethe, the liturgist of the Temple, who prompted Novalis' declaration: "Göthe wird und muß übertroffen werden - aber n u r . . . an Gehalt und Kraft, und Mannigfaltigkeit und Tiefsinn - als Künstler eigentlich nicht" (II, 642). Novalis not only intended that his Heinrich von Ofterdingen, as "Apotheose der Poesie," would counter the reduction of art to understanding in Wilhelm Meister, but that his Heinrich would demonstrate, in his contrast with Klingsohr, the capacity to extend poetry beyond its limitations as mere "Kunstprodukt - ein Werk des Verstandes."

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Just before he began writing Heinrich von Ofterdingen, Novalis' polemic against Wilhelm Meister reached its sharpest pitch.36 In January, 1800, he describes Goethe's novel as thoroughly prosaic: "Künstlerischer Atheismus ist der Geist des Buchs." Artistic atheism is the credo of Verstand and Form: "Es ist im Grunde ein fatales und albernes Buch - so pretentiös und pretiös - undichterisch im höchsten Grade, was den Geist betrift - so poëtisch auch die Darstellung ist. Es ist eine Satyre auf die Poésie" (III, 646). Novalis is fully aware of the paradox: in form, in style, in "Darstellung," Goethe displays poetic mastery. But in content, in "Geist," he has made a fool of Poesie, "der Arlequin in der ganzen Farce." Worse than court fool, Poesie is made a court sycophant: "Das ganze ist ein nobilitirter Roman. Wilhelm Meisters Lehrjahre, oder die Wahlfahrt nach dem Adelsdiplom" (III, 646-647). The full weight of this polemic obviously does not fall upon Klingsohr, who remains a venerable and sympathetic counsellor, not a parasite of hierarchy and orthodoxy. Nevertheless, in his advice to Heinrich, Klingsohr asserts the very literary precepts with which Novalis has characterized Goethe. N o t content, but form, Klingsohr affirms, is the aim of art: "Der Stoff ist nicht der Zweck der Kunst, aber die Ausführung ist es." Heinrich should temper his "Begeisterung," Klingsohr urges, and discipline his "Verstand": "Der junge Dichter kann nicht kühl, nicht besonnen genug sein." Nature works differently upon "Genuß" and "Gemüt" than upon "Verstand," and only the latter, Klingsohr insists, is "das leitende Vermögen unserer Weltkräfte." In contrasting "Gemüt" and "Verstand," Klingsohr uses a metaphor which Novalis may have intended as an allusion to Goethe's Beiträge zur Optik: "Die Natur," versetzte Klingsohr, "ist für unser Gemüt, was ein Körper für das Licht ist. Er hält es zurück, er bricht es in eigentümliche Farben."

As Goethe explains in his Beiträge, light and darkness are sheer abstractions, invisible concepts, which acquire significance only in physical, corporeal nature (§§23-27). Novalis in his "Brouillon" expresses the idea similarly when he defines light as the symbol and agent of purity and adds: "Wo das Licht nichts zu thun findet - weder etwas zu trennen, noch zu verbinden - da fährts durch" (Β § 122). In the "Fragmente" (February, 1800) which follow his "Studien zu Klingsohrs Märchen," he defines poetry as "Darstellung des Gemüths" and describes its harmonic refraction of inner light and sound (III, 650). In Klingsohr's presentation of the dialectic of self and nature, nature is the body that catches and refracts the radiant energy of the mind or "Gemüt." There is a reciproc36

Beck, pp. 18-19.

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ity of two energies: the energy of nature that beams on man, the energy of man that shines on nature. Although Klingsohr may seem to be anticipating Schelling's "Identitäts-Philosophie," Novalis may have drawn this concept of reciprocity from other sources.37 Goethe drew from Plotinus his oft-quoted formulation: War' nicht das Auge sonnenhaft, Wie könnten wir das Licht erblicken? Lebt' nicht in uns des Gottes eigne Kraft, Wie könnt' uns Göttliches entzücken?

In Die Lehrlinge zu Sais, the attentive awareness to the senses Novalis likened to a prismatic refraction of "mannigfaltige Kräfte" (I, 82). Heinrich extends Klingsohr's analogy into a community of reciprocal intercourse: "Die Menschen sind Kristalle für unser Gemüt. Sie sind die durchsichtige Natur" (I, 280). Klingsohr insists that the "Gemüt" must anchor in the "Verstand," otherwise the reciprocity may lapse into "wilde Hitze" and "Gedankenlosigkeit": Nochmals wiederhole ich, das echte Gemüt ist wie ein Licht, ebenso ruhig und empfindlich, ebenso elastisch und durchdringlich, ebenso mächtig und ebenso unmerklich wirksam als dieses köstliche Element, das auf alle Gegenstände sich mit feiner Abgemessenheit verteilt, und sie alle in reizender Mannigfaltigkeit erscheinen läßt. (I,

281)

The poetic light must be dispersed with "feine Abgemessenheit." In "Die Berliner Papiere" (July/August 1800), Novalis sketched his plans for the completion of Heinrich von Ofterdingen. Here the role of Klingsohr is identified with "Poesie der Wissenschaft" (III, 673). Tieck's version of the continuation of the novel, although it gathers together some recognizable threads from Novalis' paralipomena, certainly lacks Fable's skill of spinning many into one. In spite of the plurality of narrative possibilities in the paralipomena, there are patterns and corroborations which lend assurance that Novalis, had the agonies of disease left him respite, would have made wonderful sense of these notes. How optics and the physics of light would have contributed to the unfinished tale, it is vain to speculate. But it is easy enough to glean from his notebook entries, from Newton as well as from Goethe, Schelling, and Ritter, a summary of this theory of light and to point out the relevance to the topics listed in "Die Berliner Papiere." 37

Mähl, "Novalis und Plotin. Untersuchungen zu einer neuen Edition und Interpretation des 'Allgemeinen Brouillons'," Jahrbuch des freien deutschen Hochstifts, 1963 (Tübingen: Niemeyer, 1963), pp. 139-250. Goethe's quatrain and the reference to Plotinus is given in Rupprecht Matthaei, Goethes Farbenlehre (Ravensburg: Otto Maier Verlag, 1971), pp. 73-74.

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As he explained the encyclopaedic endeavor excited by the example of Diderot and d'Alembert, his "allgemeine Brouillon," compiled during the latter half of his studies at Freiberg, would contain "Verhältnisse Aehnlichkeiten - Gleichheiten - Wirkungen der Wissenschaften auf einander" (Β §233). What emerges in this frankly analogical and comparative compilation sometimes ends in fantasy-bound speculation, sometimes in informative cross-references. He discribes his method of tandem notation: Gravitationslehre - und Arythmetika universalis will ich zuerst durchgehen. Jener soll Eine Stunde, dieser 2 Stunden gewidmet werden. Was mir nebenher einfällt, wird in das allgemeine] Brouillon mit hineingeschrieben. (Β §231)

The "Gravitationslehre,"38 of course, took Novalis directly into Newton's physics, and the "arythmetika universalis" into Newton's algebra. The analogical method kept him from overlooking the essential relationship of the Philosophiae Naturalis Principia Mathematica (1687) and the Opticks (1704). Just as it had been argued that the wave theory of light had suffered neglect because of the academic tyranny imposed by zealous advocates of the emission-theory, so, too, toward the end of the century, objections began to be raised that the adherence to the Newtonian algorithm, and the accompanying rejection of Continental methods, had retarded the progress of the calculus in England.39 When he surveyed the opposing factions regarding the calculus and the propagation of light, Novalis insisted the differences were not insurmountable. He proposed a "Transcendental Physik" to be accomplished through a reconciliation of Newton with Leibniz, of Newton with Euler.40 Die Verschiedenheit der Leibnitzischen und Neutonschen Vorstellungsart von der Rechnung d[es] Unendlichen] beruht auf demselben Grunde als die Verschiedenheit der atomistischen und Vibrations oder Aetherischen Theorie. Die Fluxion und das

38

Novalis, III, 69 and 844-845n; for his "Gravitationslehre," Novalis lists as texts: Immanuel Kant, Metaphysische Anfangsgründe der Naturwissenschaft (Riga, 1786); F . A . C . Gren, Grundriß der Naturlehre (Halle, 3rd ed. 1797); Pierre Simon LaPlace, Darstellung des Weltsystems, trans. Johann K. F. Hauff (Frankfurt/aM, 1797); Karl August Eschenmayer, Versuch, die Gesetze magnetischer Erscheinungen aus Sätzen der Naturmetaphysik zu entwickeln (Tübingen, 1797).

39

F. Cajori, A History of the Conceptions of Limits and Fluxions in Great Britain from Newton to Woodhouse (Chicago and London: Open Court, 1919). See also I. Bernard Cohen, Preface to Isaac Newton, Opticks, or Treatise of the Reflections, Refractions, Inflections & Colours of Light (New York: Dover, 1979; based on the 4th ed., London, 1730), pp. xi-xii. Martin Dyck, Novalis and Mathematics (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1960), p. 73.

40

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Differential sind die entgegen[ge]sezten Anschauungen des mathematischen Elements beyde zusammen machen die mathematische Substanz aus. Es beruht auf dem Satze x. X y. = + . Dieses Plus ist das Differential oder die Fluxion der Function von χ und y. Die proportionnelle Eintheilung dieses Plus ist die Hauptschwierigkeit dieses Calcüls. (B §645)

Following LaGrange, Novalis assumes that fluxions treat curves as arising from motion. According to Novalis' view of their calculus, Leibniz sees little increments (where the rate of change of a function is described as the ratio of infinitesimals), while Newton sees curves (where the rate of flow is described as the ratio of fluxions). These "entgegengesetzte" views can and should be reconciled since they together constitute the essence (or "Substanz") of mathematics. Such a dialectical resolution (and Novalis may have relied on the authority of either LaGrange or LaPlace), in fact lies at the heart of the infinitesimal calculus — in the compensation of errors. N o w infinitesimals and differentials let Novalis treat curves - even lightbeams or trajectories without thinking of a geometric concept, for a curve is a sum of infinitesimal parts, much like viewing light as the sum of undulations. On the other hand, the Newtonian calculus made Novalis think of curves as both physical and geometric, and accorded with thinking of light as corpuscular emission. Since Novalis saw that the opposition of the calculus could be resolved, he assumed that the same reconciliation would follow for the propagation of light. Leibnizian calculus, as Novalis saw it, takes as its primary object of study the infinitesimal difference between consecutive values of a continually varying quantity, where such differences are considered in ratios, as in the differential quotient ^

; he then treated the d as an

operator, whose properties could be considered algorithmically independent of geometry. The use of infinites and infinitesimals, in a calculus ultimately producing results about the finite, Novalis considered a mathematical Idealism: Die Integration hebt durch ein entgegengeseztes Verfahren den angeblichen Fehler (in Beziehung auf endliche Größen) auf. Sie annihilirt die Differentialen - und vergrößert ihre scheinbaren Differenzen bis zur endlichen Größe: Es ist ein positives und negatives Verfahren. Die Grundformel des Infinitesimal] Calcüls —.

00 =

a. Es ist eine schein-

bare Behandlung-Bestimmung des Idealen - ein indirecter - polarischer Calcül. Gebrauch des Irrthums, (III, 66)

In Novalis' equation

is annihilated; °° is only an ideal, yet bringing a

and α» together produces something finite.

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In dealing with the rate at which a quantity in flux alters in magnitude, Newton focussed on the ratios of the rates of flux, or "fluxions" of such quantities. This mode of explanation Novalis thought to be geometric, because Newton explained flowing quantities as represented by a curve described by a moving point. Even more geometrically, in the Principia, Newton made little use of the calculus and relied instead on the models of Appolonios and Euclid. Novalis refers to the geometric bias of the Principia: "Neuton hat die synthetische Methode d[er] Alten mehr befolgt" (Β §646). To be sure, Novalis has borrowed his appraisal of Newton from LaGrange and LaPlace,41 but the case he develops for his "Transcendental Physik" is boldly original. Schelling suggested in Von der Weltseele (1798) that the "Newton'sche und Euler'sche Theorie vom Lichte" might be brought together. 42 Kant, too, had related the chemical-dynamic and the mathematic-mechanistic presumptions to the theories of Newton and Euler and proposed their resolution in his Metaphysische Anfangsgründe der Naturwissenschaft (1786).43 Novalis discerned in the Newton-Euler opposition telling similarities to the Newton-Leibniz controversy over calculus, and he sought to demonstrate that Newton's conception of the rectilinear emission of corpuscles of light revealed the same geometric and synthetic habit of mind that was operative in the fluxion calculus and in the Principia. Leibniz and Euler, as Novalis evidently appraised the opposition, could support the wavetheory of light because the infinitesimal analysis freed them from the geometric limits. Newtonian calculus predicates the trajectory system of Newtonian optics. Because Novalis attributed the disparity to the prejudices of Stoff vs. Bewegung, the combination he proposed was not merely eclectic, but a truly harmonic reconciliation, a transcendental physics. As he had written to Friedrich Schlegel, upon his arrival at Freiberg Novalis already had "Zu einem Tractat zum Lichte... vieles fertig." One of the more extensive commentaries on light from this period is recorded in the "Physicalische Fragmente" (III, 96-99). "Die Optik lehrt uns nichts über die spezifische Natur des Lichts," Novalis com41

42

43

Novalis, III, 386, 949n; Hauffs translation of LaPlace, cited η. 38 above, and La Grange, Manuel d'un cours de Chimie (Paris: Bernard, 1799) were in Novalis' library, III, 697-1063-1064n. LaGrange's Théories des fonctions analytiques (1797) begins with a systematic comparison of Newton's fluxion analysis and Leibniz' differential analysis; LaPlace's Exposition du système du monde (1796) praises the Principia for its geometric and synthetic conceptuality. Friedrich Schelling, Von der Weltseele, eine Hypothese der hohem Physik zur Erklärung des allgemeinen Organismus (Hamburg: Friedrich Perthes, 1798), p. 12. Kant, Metaphysische Anfangsgründe der Naturwissenschaft (Riga, 1786), pp. 72-74.

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plained of the mathematical and mechanical limitations of the Newtonian account, which he described as no more than "der Anfang der allgemeinen] Lehre der transitorischen Organisation des Flüssigen." That he considers the media "flüssig" is not simply an appropriation of the Newtonian "Aether" through which the corpuscular emission of light is propagated. With Sömmering, Novalis had endeavored with this conceptual shift to combine Newton's emission-theory with Euler's wave-theory. The light itself is liquid. Sömmering located the "Organ der Seele" and all activity of perception in the "Flüssigkeit der Hirnhölen."44 Novalis affirms: "Das Auge ist der vollkommenste unsrer Sinnedas beste Liquido-organ" (III, 97). Heinrich von Ofterdingen opens with the revelation, in dream-vision, of the liquid essence of light. Within the "Höhle" Heinrich finds the "leuchtende Strom" that springs from the fountain in a "mächtiger Strahl."45 Bathing in this pool of radiant "Flüssigkeit," Heinrich experiences the erotic caresses in "jede Welle des lieblichen Elements." Light, Novalis speculates in his "Großes Physikalisches Studienheft," may be "das abs[olut] Flüssige... die Basis alles Flüssigen" (III, 58). Light and liquidity, he adds, stand in a centripetal/centrifugal relation to heat and solidity. The "Physikalische Fragmente" begin with the note that excitation contributes to composition in inorganic chemistry; his query, "vielleicht das Licht ebenso," leads to an examination of polarities, "Licht und NichtlichtThe decomposition of water into oxygen and hydrogen through galvanic action leads the list. He questions whether gravity exhibits polarity, whether magnetism, electricity, heat, and light share similar affinity and antagonism. In the notes which follow, Novalis cites from Miss Fulhame, Berthollet, Fourcroy, and he acknowledges, as well, Ritter's studies in galvanic electrolysis. From Ritter's Beweis, daß ein beständiger Galvanismus den Lebensproceß in dem Thierreich begleite (1798), Novalis diagrams the "dreyfache Verbindung" (III, 83, 91). From Ritter and Volta he notes the effects of electricity on the eye and tongue (III, 950). When he comes to his discussion of the eye as "das beste Liquidoorgan," light is defined not merely as liquid, but specifically as galvanic liquid. "Wir haben kein electrisches und magnetisches und galvanisches Auge und Ohr." Deprived of such a "Galvanoorgan," perception is without immediacy; the

44 45

Sömmering, Über das Organ der Seele, p. 20. Cf. "Die Erfüllung": "Da drang durch die Aste ein langer Strahl zu seinen Augen und er sah durch den Strahl in eine ferne, kleine, wundersame Herrlichkeit hinein, welche nicht zu beschreiben, noch kunstreich mit Farben nachzubilden möglich gewesen wäre," Novalis, I, 321.

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eye, as Liquidoorgan, can perceive "diese Flüssigkeiten nur indirecte." Perception is second-hand. The eye can see neither things nor light, only the images stimulated in the "Hirnhöhle" by the excitation of the nerves; in the biological process of perception, the eye devours light and excretes images: N u r das materielle oder dynamfische] Glied der Sehreitzung nennt man gewöhnlich Licht. (Lichtstoff oder Kraft. Lichtreizbarkeit.) Die Sensation Licht ist davon unterschieden. Auge und Lichtreitz sind die Constructionsglieder der Sensation Licht. . . . Ein sehendes Auge ist ein durch stärkeren Lichtreitz überwältigter Lichtreitz. Er sucht seine Capacitaet zu vergrößern - und frißt Licht - absorbirt Licht - hier wird Licht sensibel - was seine Absorption bindert - sieht er als mehr oder minder dunkle Gestalten. Die sichtbaren Dinge sind (Excremente des A u g e s . ) . . . Sehn ist - Wahrnehmung der Verhältnisse der Capacitaeten und Erregbarkeiten mehrerer Lichtindividuen. (III, 96-97)

Even if the eye perceives only indirectly, still it is the most perfect of the senses. "Alle Sinne sollten Augen werden. Fernröhre." The telescopic receptivity to actio in distans makes the eye an instrument of "Berührung" and "Ubergang." In his notes to Hemsterhuis (August/ September, 1798), he affirms as credo: "Alles Sichtbare haftet am Unsichtbaren"; he scorns the telescope, however, as "ein künstliches, unsichtbares Organ" (II, 650), artificial because not sensitive, not sighted, not an organ actually, only a "Gefäß." Touch, the "Sollidoorgan," is confined by the boundaries of self and surface. Sight, the Liquidoorgan, transcends these boundaries in a sensitive organic participation in the visible and invisible world. Coulomb's law of the force of attraction and repulsion, Newton's law of gravity, both posited a propagation of influences through a universal medium, an actio in distans. For Novalis the reciprocity of perception also involved a Fernwirkung. The eye receives action-at-a-distance not only telescopically, but also thermometrically, for the eye is a "Wärmemesser" and color is "Calorique": "Die Wärme sieht farbig aus" (III, 98). The presence or absence of light, as in Ritter's "Grundformen," closes or opens the galvanic circuit of perception (III, 100). In the "Physicalische Fragmente," Novalis questions the possibility of perfect perception, an immediate rather than a mediated perception. "Sollte der vollkommenste Reitz, das vollkommenste Fluidum dem vollkommensten Sinn entsprechen? Sollte das Licht eine aus einem höhern Gesichtspunct - mit mehr Geist angesehene Luft sein?" Is it possible, to use the language of Goethe's plotinian quatrain, for the eye to be more "sonnenhaft," more "göttlich"? With St.Paul, Novalis anticipates a transcendental perception: "For now we see through a glass darkly" (I Cor. 13 :12); we should all become "children of light" (Eph.

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5 :8). Novalis proposes an intellectually inspired sense, neither dazzled by the brightness, nor averting to the lowly: "der höhere Grad macht die niedrigeren Reitze sichtbar." The inspired eye should be free of "Blendung" and "Augensthenie" (III, 99). Born with sidereal perception, Astralis is particularly suited to his role of lyric seer in Part Two. In his annotation to Schelling's Von der Weltseele (1798), Novalis devotes so much attention to the argument on the polarity of light that this manuscript was believed to be the intended "Tractat zum Lichte." In the same letter to Friedrich Schlegel (26 December 1797) in which he mentions the Tractat, Novalis also describes his first meeting with Schelling. After registering his objections against Ideen zu einer Philosophie der Natur (1797), Novalis is reassured by Schelling's promise of "ein höherer Flug." He is impressed by Schelling's "poëtischer Sinn," his "ächte Universaltendenz," and his "wahre Strahlenkraft - von Einem Punct in die Unendlichkeit hinaus." To Schlegel, Novalis mentions Goethe's plans for Prometheus and Faust, and he reports Schelling's judgment that the Odyssee is Goethe's true "Mutterboden" (IV, 242-243). Schelling did not meet with Goethe until May, 1798, but his Von der Weltseele shows that he was aware of Goethe's most recent experiments. The Beiträge zur Optik had introduced the idea of color polarity (§§ 50, 55) and the primal unity of light as Urphänomen (§9). In 1798 Goethe became interested in subject/object distinctions and the problem of mediation. During his visit to Jena at the end of May, Goethe invited Schelling to share in his "optische Versuche.'"" A week later (7 June 1798), Schelling forwarded to Goethe one of the copies of Von der Weltseele which he had just received from the publisher, Friedrich Perthes. 47 In his "Tagebuch," Goethe records a studious interest in the Weltseele;48 in Schelling he found a comrade-in-arms in opposing the Newtonian physics as well as a sympathetic ally in support of his own approach to light and color. Schelling, in Darstellung meines Systems der Philosophie (1801), explained his coalition with Goethe as a common endeavor to retrieve "die wahre Physik" from the "Verwirrung und Nacht" of the Newtonian science: "Eine künftige Geschichte der Physik wird nicht unbemerkt lassen, welche retardierende Kraft in Ansehung der ganzen Wissenschaft die Newtonsche Vorstellung vom Licht

46 47

48

WA, III, Bd. 2, 209. Horst Fuhrmans, ed., F. W.J. Schelling, Briefe und Dokumente (Bonn: Bouvier Verlag, 1962-1975), I, 137. WA, III, Bd. 2, 260-265.

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ausgeübt hat."49 In positing light as "die absolute Identität," Schelling confirms Goethe's demonstration that light is pure "Thätigkeit." Goethe sought to prove in his prismatic experiments that light does not "contain" color, but that color is produced by the conflict of light and darkness, energy and matter. Goethe explained that color occurs in the "trübe Mittel" between the "Haupt- und Nebenbilder" of an object seen through a prism. Schelling adapts Goethe's explanation: Die Farbe ist in Bezug auf das Licht etwas schlechthin Accidentelles. Die innere Wirkung der Refraction ist das Getrübtwerden des Lichts; die äußere ein Verrücken des Bilds; daß aber dieses Verrücken Farbe hervorbringe, dazu wird noch überdieß die zufällige Bedingung an einander gränzender heller und dunkler Ränder erfordert, s. Goethe's Beiträge zur Optik.50

Schelling seems utterly sure of the matter: color is "etwas schlechthin Accidentelles." Goethe, at this time, was still trying to sort out the distinctions between physical and physiological colors. "Weitere Fortschritte," he recorded in 1800, "Sogenante zufällige Farben. Einsicht in den physiologischen Teil. Fundament im Organ gesucht. Die farbigen Schatten werden unter diese Rubrik gebracht." Accidental colors are those presented by subjective sensations, not external. Schelling readily declared all colors accidental. Goethe acknowledged that some colors, such as after-images, had their "Fundament" in the organ of the eye. Colored shadows posed a rather difficult problem. In 1793 Goethe had written an essay, "Von den Farbigen Schatten," which he had intended for the continuation of the Beiträge zur Optik. Only with the Farbenlehre in 1810 did Goethe publish an explanation of the colored shadows as resulting from two contrasting sources of light. George Louis Ledere Buffon had written on colored shadows in Sur les couleurs accidentelles (1743). Jean Henri Hassenfratz, in his Observations sur les ombres colorées (1782), noted that the colored shadows were always cast in "couleurs complémentaires," such as blue and yellow. Benjamin Thomson, Count Rumford, argued "daß die Farben der Schatten... bloß ein optischer Betrug wären, der von Kontrasten oder irgendeinem andern Effekt benachbarter Farben aufs Auge herrühre."51

49

50 51

Schelling, "Darstellung meines Systems der Philosophie," in Zeitschrift für spekulative Physik (Jena and Leipzig: Christian Ernst Gabler, 1800-1801; reprint Hildesheim: Georg Olms, 1969), II, l.Heft, 60-61. Schelling, Zeitschrift für spekulative Physik, II, 2. Heft, 78. Benjamin Thomson, Count Rumford, "Uber die farbigen Schatten," Neues Journal der Physik, ed. F . A . K . Gren, II (1795), 58; cf. "Untersuchung über die dem Lichte zugeeigneten chemischen Eigenschaften," Allgemeines Journal der Chemie, ed. A.N. Scherer, II (1799), 3-20.

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Count Rumford and Schelling present opposing points-of-view: one asserts that all color perception is accidental, the other that all accidental color is optical illusion. When Novalis made the entry, "Farbenlehre. Die farbigen Schatten - Gelb und Blau. Roth." (Β §310), he associated the phenomena with the speed of light. His next entry draws from LaPlace: "Lichttheorie. Je stärker die Repulsivkraft eines leuchtenden Körpers ist, desto mehr Geschwindigkeit erhalten die Lichtstrahlen - desto kräftiger sind sie" (Β § 311). Novalis quotes from the Système du monde LaPlace's observations on the aberration of the stars: blue stars were the strongest, red the weakest.52 Heinrich's companion in Part Two is Cyane, whose name means "blue" in Greek and in German refers to the popular blue wildflower, the "Kornblume." The entire movement towards the apotheosis of poetry in Heinrich's "Erfüllung," Novalis intended to cast in blue: "Farbencharacter. Alles Blau in meinem Buche"; he also adds: "Hinten Farbenspiel - Individualitaet jeder Farbe. (Das Auge ist allein räumlich - die andern Sinne alle zeitlich.)" (III, 676). As the active and passive extremes of visible energy, blue and red are the positive and negative poles of light: "Sollten die Farben Übergang von abs[oluter] Bewegung (des posfitiven] und neg[ativen] Lichtstoffs) zu absoluter Ruhe seyn. Bewegung bindet - was Ruhe zersezt und umgekehrt" (Β § 177). When rapidly spinning, the motion of the colorwheel is supposed to unite the colors into a pure white.53 Novalis saw a pale-blue "milchfarbne Schimmer." H e describes the polarity of "Bewegung" and "Ruhe": Aus der idealen Zersetzung des Lebens entstehn Kförper] und Seele. . . . Vermischung der Farben durch schnelle Bewegung. Schwindel, ruhende Bewegung. Ruhe trennt, was Bewegung verbindet und umgekehrt. / Haltbare Farben, die sich nicht zersetzen. (Β S 171)

In these notes on the physics of color (Β §§310-311, 171, 177), Novalis provides a basis for the color symbolism of Part Two: all colors have "Individualitaet" in the temporal context of the mortal perception, yet blue predominates, because the visionary or spiritual eye perceives the space filled with energy. The universal "Fluidum" vibrates with the movement of primal light: "(Kreutzende Lichtstrahlen und Kreutzende Prismatische Strahlen. Über d[as] abs[olut] elastische Fluidum, wodurch erst das Licht zu Licht wird. Es ist im Weltraum verbreitet)" (Β §363).

52 53

LaPlace, Darstellung des Weltsystems, 2.Theil, 333; Novalis, III, 844n., 922n. Because the colors of the spectrum are shades or shadows of light, their sum, Goethe argued, must be "trüb"; for Goethe's appraisal of the color-wheel demonstration, see: WA, II, Bd. 1, 226, and I, Bd. 5, 179.

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In answering the distinction between accidental and essential colors, Novalis assumes an explanation similar to Schelling's. Colors are excited in the eye: they are not objective attributes bound to matter. Rather than discriminating, with Goethe, between the physical and physiological phenomena, Novalis relates the polarities of energy and matter directly to the color spectrum. Blue is the color of the highest activity and thus the color rising to the "Seele"; red, as the dimming of energy, is the color subsiding into " K ö r p e r . " Friedrich Schlegel persisted in a disgruntled antagonism in appraising Schelling's Weltseele as "eine göttliche Nachlässigkeit," and his account of energy as the "blühende Farbe" of a patient dying of consumption: "Schon ist nichts lebendiges für ihn als Plus und Minus." 54 Novalis may well have been influenced by Schlegel's opinion of Schelling, but he found his own reasons for objecting to the "Plus und Minus" polarities of the Weltseele. In his letter to Caroline Schlegel (9 September 1798), he admits a growing interest in spite of Schelling's want of mimetic synthesis and maturation: "Je tiefer ich in die Unreife von Schellings Weltseele eindringe - desto interressanter wird mir sein Kopf - der das Höchste ahndet und dem nur die reine Wiedergebungsgabe fehlt - die Göthe zum merckwürdigsten Physiker unsrer Zeit macht. Schelling faßt gut - er hält schon um vieles schlechter und nachzubilden versteht er am Wenigsten" (IV, 261). Schelling is certain that electricity is "ein zusammengesetztes Fluidum" composed of light and some other "für jetzt noch unbekannten Materie." With this conviction he claimed his "Wiederlegung der Franklinschen Hypothese." When Achim von Arnim tried to provide a demonstrative proof in his Versuch einer Theorie der elektrischen Erscheinungen (1799), he could not help but observe that Schelling's reasoning was inadequate: "ich habe aber keine Erläuterung gefunden, welche ich meinen Lesern mittheilen könnte." Schelling's formulation for electricity follows his earlier equation for light: "Das Licht ist ein Produkt aus 2 Matferien] - einer positiven, + elastischen,

fluidi deferentis, - und einer negativen, — elastischen, ponderablen. "" Schelling tries polarities : light specific gravity decomposition,

54

55

to solve the problem of matter vs. energy through is both. The impulsive elasticity of light is retarded by a and a material inertia. Light is the product of a chemical oxydation, and it is propagated in proportion to the

F. Schlegel, letter to F. E. D. Schleiermacher (July, 1799), Jonas-Dilthey, Aus Schleiermachers Leben, III, 78; quoted in Fuhrmans, Schelling, Briefe, I, 154-155. Schelling, Von der Weltseele, p. 10; quotations are from Novalis' excerpts, not from Schelling's original text.

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intensity of its origin. The elasticity of light may penetrate all bodies that do not alter its polarity. Light is basic to all positive/negative polarities: Alles was auf Erden den Character des positiven trägt ist ein Bestandtheil des Lichts. Magnetism-Elektricität. 1. Das Licht ist die erste und positive Ursache der allgemeinen Polaritaet. (III, 102)

With Goethe, Schelling argues that color is produced by the encounter of light and matter. Novalis, too, supported Goethe's principle of color as the "Taten und Leiden" of light: "Wo das Licht nichts zu thun findet - weder etwas zu trennen, noch zu verbinden - da fährts durch" (Β § 122). He notes from Schelling: "Das Licht kann seine zusammengesetzte Beschaffenheit nicht entfalten, als wo es auf Körper trift, die zu seinen Elementen ein verschiedenes Verhältniß haben." Matter alters the negative/positive charge and reflects what the eye perceives as color. Novalis excerpts from Schelling's text: Jeder Körper wird durchsichtig, im Verhältniß ihn das Oxigène durchdringt. Licht führt Oxigen, als negatives] Princip, bey sich, sein ponderabler Bestandteil. Licht, Produkt von Aether und Oxigène. Ein oxydirter Körper stößt — O. zurück. 1. Ein K[örper] zieht in dem Maaße die positive] Matferie] des Lichts an, als er die neg[ative] Mfaterie] zurückstößt und umgek[ebrt]. 2. Brechung ist Anziehung. Ein stärker gebrochner Strahl ist ein dem Aether näher verwandter Strahl. Die Farbenstrahlen bezeichnen nur die verschiednen möglichen Verhältnisse zwischen + O und - O. (III, 103)

According to this scheme of polarity, "white" light is the balance of charges, blue is the positive pole and red is the negative pole. To the problem of perception, how the eye sees light and color, Schelling merely extends the principle of negative/positive polarity and the encounter of light with matter to include the nervous matter of the eye, which he describes as sensitive to the oxydation, " + O und — O , " of the electrical charge. Here Novalis begins to show his discontent with the deficiencies of Schelling's Wiedergebungsgabe. The crux is Schelling's assertion: "Erklärung der Einwirckung des Geistes auf den Körper und umgek[ehrt] ist nach Grundsätzen der Transcendentalphil[osophie] unmöglich." 56 Novalis responds to this Statement with six exclamation points accompanying his denunciation: "Falsch." Novalis notes that Schelling persists in defining consciousness in exterior terms, as a response to the pervasive polarities of light, electricity, and magnetism. This doctrine of universal dualism, Novalis objected, cheated man of his capacities to reconcile matter and energy, body and mind, and to 56

Schelling, Von der Weltseele, p. 296-297.

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discover unity and harmony. In direct opposition to Schelling, he affirms the "Einwirckung des Geistes auf den Körper" in the sexual embrace: P h y s i k . . . Wie das Weib das höchste sichtbare Nahrungsmittel ist, das den Übergang vom Körper zur Seele macht - So sind auch die Geschlechtstheile die höchsten, äußern Organe, die den Ubergang von sichtbaren und unsichtbaren Organen machen. D e r Blick - (die Rede) - die Händeberührung - der Kuß - die Busenberührung - der Grifan die Geschlechtstheile - der A c t der Umarmung - dis sind die Staffeln der Leiter - auf der die Seele heruntersteigt - dieser entgegengesezt ist eine Leiter - auf der der Körper heraufsteigt - bis zur Umarmung. . . . Seele und Kförper] berühren sich im A c t . - chemisch - oder galvanisch - oder electrisch - oder feurig - Die Seele ißt den Kförper] (und verdaut ihn?) instantant - der Körper empfängt die Seele - (und gebiert sie?) instan tant ( Β § 126)

Through the stimulus of love, Berührung is consummated in Übergang, from body to soul, from matter to energy. The "Wechselwirkung zwischen Geist und Körper" which Schelling declared impossible to affirm philosophically, Novalis happily affirms in the moment of ecstasy. The galvanic spark of Berührung and communion in Ubergang he refers to as his "Transfusionsidee."57 In his annotations to the Weltseele, he attempts to translate Schelling's external polarities into internal terms. There can be no external influence on a body without a corresponding "innere Veränderung": "Ein Körper kann in kein Verhältniß treten - ohne mit sich selbst - oder in sich selbst in ein correspondirendes Verhältniß zu treten - correspondirend - dasselbe, nur verkehrt" (III, 109). In answering Schelling's account of light as an aetherial electrolysis, "eine partielle Zerlegung der Lebensluft, wobey die beyden electrischen Materien, als gemeinschaftlichen Bestandtheil das Licht erhalten," he does not reject Schelling's premises, he merely adds the "innere Veränderung" as corollary. Because light affects the reflecting or refracting body, perception must be a response to the " ± O " of light. Thus an "innere Veränderung" and "correspondirendes Verhältniß" is a necessary consequence. Here Novalis evokes the concept of the "verkehrtes Bild" that he had earlier used in his studies of Fichte in 1795/96.58 In analyzing Fichte's division of Ich and Nicht-Ich, he had reasoned that any self-reflection must involve a separation from the "absolutes Ich," and therefore a "verkehrte Richtung" and "notwendige Täuschung" (II, 110, 135, 142). This idea was not forgotten at 57

Novalis, III, 426, 4 3 3 ; Β § 8 0 2 and § 8 4 4 express the "Transfusionsidee"; for additional references to " B e r ü h r u n g " and "Übergang," see Β § 8 0 , 81, 83, 100, 126, 509, 513, 593, 594, 634, 851, 872, 896, 897.

58

Molnar, p. 2 6 ; cf. Leta Lewis, "Novalis and the Fichtean Absolute," German X X X V (1962), 4 6 4 - 4 7 4 . Novalis, II, 110, 135, 142; Β § 4 9 .

Quarterly,

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Freiberg, for in the "Grosses Physikalisches Heft," he speculates: "Muß man alles Sensible verkehrt nehmen? Bild im Spiegel. Meine alte Idee von der Philosophie]" (III, 65). When applied to Schelling's concept of the "Zerlegung" of light, however, the "verkehrtes Bild" is not merely a confrontation with the mirror image, as in the unveiling of the goddess at Sais: "er sah - Wunder des Wunders - Sich Selbst" (II, 584). Schelling's "Zerlegung" causes a positive/negative inversion. Schelling uses the term "Idioelectrisch" to describe bodies that attract " + O " and reflect "—O" or vice versa; as distinguished from conductors, which attract and repel " + O " and " — O " at the same rate, idioelectric bodies absorb more light than heat or more heat than light. Idioelectric, then, are the photochemical processes described by Scheele. Novalis relates the photochemical "Zerlegung" of light to galvanic process: "Die Wärme ist ätzend. (Wärme - Galvanismus.) Qualitaeten entstehen durch polare Zersetzung" (III, 111). When the " ± O " polarity of light strikes the eye it forms the "dreifache Verbindung" of the galvanic circuit. With his "Transfusionsidee" Novalis gave perception the power of actio in distans to overcome the separation of noumenon and phenomenon. Schelling, of course, was himself very much concerned with bridging the Kantian abyss dividing consciousness from the Ding-ansich. He found his solution in postulating the essential identity of nature and mind: "Die Natur soll der sichtbare Geist, der Geist die unsichtbare Natur seyn. Hier also, in der absoluten Identität des Geistes in uns und der Natur außer uns, muß sich das Problem, wie eine Natur außer uns möglich sey, auflösen." Borrowing from Albrecht von Haller's distinction between the irritable and the sensible response of the nervous system,59 Schelling posits a dual engagement, a receptivity and activity, of the organism with its environment. All organic vitality derives from the reciprocity of this nervous response: "ihre Ursachen entdecken heiße das Geheimnis des Lebens enthüllen, und den Schleyer der Natur aufheben." That behind the veil stood a goddess of "Irritabilität" Novalis considered debasingly reductive. Schelling's scheme defined muscular spasms, not conscious sensitivity: Schelling geht nur von dem Irritabilitiitsphaenomèn der Welt aus - er legt den Muskel zum Grunde - Wo bleibt der Nerv - die Adern - das Blut - und die Haut - der Zellstoff. Warum geht er, der Chymiker, nicht vom Process aus - von dem Phaenomèn der Berührung - der Kette. (Β § 1102)

"Berührung," the touch of two metals and a few drops of water, was all Ritter required to demonstrate the electro-chemical "Übergang" in a 5

' Albrecht von Haller, De partibus corporis bumani sensibilius et irritabilius (Göttingen, 1752).

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simple "galvanische Kette." 60 Novalis was convinced that through Ritter's galvanic experiments, he could transform the polarities of S p e l ling's Naturphilosophie into a dynamic Verbindung. The fluid and ponderable elasticity of Schelling's light, Novalis wrote in the summer of 1800, Ritter will read as hieroglyphs of nature: Ritter sucht durchaus die eigentliche Weltseele der Natur auf. Er will die sichtbaren und ponderablen Lettern lesen lernen, und das Setzen der höhern geistigen Kräfte erklären. Alle äußre Processe sollen als Symbole und lezte Wirkungen innerer Processe begreiflich werden. Die Unvollständigkeit jener soll das Organ für diese und die Nothwendigkeit einer Annahme des Personellen, als lezten Motivs, Resultat jedes Experiments werden. (III, 655)

Ritter's Beweis, daß ein beständiger Galvanismus den Lebensproceß in

dem Thierreich begleite (1798) had already served as the subject for numerous notebook entries in 1799. During the summer of 1800, after Novalis completed his extensive report on coal deposits in Saxony as well as several papers on mining and manufacturing, Ritter again attracts his attention, and his notes on Ritter's experiments also influence his plans for the completion of Heinrich von Ofterdingen. The electric arc and galvanic kiss of Eros revive Freya at the climax of Klingsohr's Märchen. In the second part of the novel, even before Mathilde is resurrected from her sleeping-beauty death, Heinrich is accompanied by a poetic "Geist," the sidereal man, born of the lovers' first embrace: Geburt des siderischen Menschen mit der ersten Umarmung Mathfildens] und Heinrichs. Dieses Wesen spricht nun immer zwischen den Kapiteln. Die Wunderwelt ist nun aufgethan. (III, 672)

Novalis provides a clear indication of the narrative function he intends for his sidereal man, and his speeches between chapters, for he introduces him as Astralis, the narrator of the prologue to "Die Erfüllung." Astralis traces his genesis to the "blaue Blume" of Heinrich's dream on the Eve of St. John: "Wollust ist meines Daseins Zeugungskraft." He is not an added character: he was conceived with "Die Erwartung" and becomes immanent in "Die Erfüllung": Ich bin der Mittelpunkt, der heiige Quell, Aus welchem jede Sehnsucht stürmisch fließt, Wohin sich jede Sehnsucht, mannigfach Gebrochen, wieder still zusammen zieht.

60

Ritter, "Einige Beobachtungen über den Galvanismus in der anorgischen Natur und über den Zusammenhang der Electricität mit der chemischen Qualität der Körper," Annaleη der Physik, II (1799), p. 81.

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Astralis ist the prism that refracts, "mannigfach/Gebrochen," and reunites the radiance of desire. With the lightning of touch he is roused to life: Ich quoll in meine eigne Flut zurück Es war ein Blitz-nun könnt ich schon mich regen, Die zarten Fäden und den Kelch bewegen. Schnell schössen, wie ich selber mich begann, Zu irdschen Sinnen die Gedanken an. Noch war ich blind, doch schwankten lichte Sterne Durch meines Wesens wunderbare Ferne, Nichts war noch nah, ich fand mich nur von weiten.

As near as touch, yet as distant as the stars, Astralis is the mythic personification of the actio in distans, the centripetal/centrifugal force, the "Berührung" and "Übergang" of ecstatic perception. In Klingsohr's Märchen, the flame of the Mother devoured the sun and created a new dawn. Mathilde has perished and passed into a new world where she is to be reunited with Heinrich. Astralis is the morning-star of that prophecy: Es bricht die neue Welt herein Und verdunkelt den hellsten Sonnenschein.

Although his very name, Astralis, identifies his destiny, "per aspera ad astra," Novalis has given his "siderischer Mensch" dual provenance, for he is related both to the "siderisches Jahr" (Latin sidus = star) and the "siderisches Pendel" (Greek sidëros = iron). A desire to compete with Schelling and Baader, his colleagues in the Bavarian Academy, may well have induced Ritter to an increasing indulgence in the speculative inquiries of "Naturphilosophie." Certainly the scientific rigor of his efforts in "Naturwissenschaft" was compromised. His reputation as physicist was gravely damaged when his attention began to shift from galvanism and electro-chemistry to "unterirdische Electrometrie." The turning point may be dated from his response to Christian Samuel Weiß' invitation (1 October 1806) to join him on the Lago di Garda to witness the wonders of Francesco Campetti, the "siderischer Mensch." 61 Ritter returned to found a periodical, Der Siderismus, himself the only contributor to its one and only issue (January, 1808), and he devoted the last years before his death (25

61

Carl Graf von Klinckowstroem, "Beitrag zur Geschichte der Wünschelrute und verwandte Erscheinungen, namentlich der Ritterschen Pendelversuche," Psychische Studien, X X X V (1908), 523-531; "Die Stellungnahme der Münchner Königlichen Akademie der Wissenschaften zu den Experimenten Ritters mit Campetti," Psychische Studie, X X X V I (1909), 33-40, 148-153, 351-359; "Johann Wilhelm Ritter und die Wünschelrute," Die 'Wünschelrute, Beilage: "Das Wasser" (1913), No. 32-34, 1-3.

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January 1810) to sidereal and rabdomantic pursuits. Schelling participated in Ritter's sideral séances, a ouija-board spiritualism performed with an iron-pyrite pendulum suspended over a presumably willing body. The pendulum revealed, by its positive or negative ellipses, clockwise or counter-clockwise, the energies within whatever part of the anatomy lay beneath. Schelling, in his letter to A. W. Schlegel (7 November 1807), writes as an aloof observer of Ritter's mania: "Aus meiner Nähe könnte ich Ihnen viel Interessantes besonders über Versuche, welche seit einem Jahr hier über die Eigenschaften der Metal- und Wasserfühler zunächst von Ritter, angestellt wurden, mittheilen, wäre dieß für einen Brief nicht zu weitläufig."62 Novalis' notes on Ritter, which draw substantially from his conversations with the young - five years younger than himself - but already highly acclaimed expert on galvanism, reveal that Ritter's interest in the "siderisches Pendel" long precedes his encounter with Campetti. When Novalis refers to the "Alte Idee der Sympathie und d[es] Parallelism der Planeten und Metalle," he harkens back to such observations on pendula and terella as William Gilbert's De Magnete (London, 1600).63 T o be sure, Newton's demonstration of the relationship between gravity and weight had also made use of the pendulum, and from his studies at Freiberg Novalis must have been familiar with the application of the pendulum vibrating seconds in trigonometrical surveys. Variations in the ellipticity and the gravitation of the earth were measured by finding the difference of the length of two pendula vibrating in equal time at different latitudes.64 But Novalis' "Alte Idee der Sympathie" conjures something more than the principle of inertia in accord with which the swinging pendulum describes the earth's revolution. Novalis toys with the possibility of magnetic correspondence: Das Eisen nähert sich am meisten der Masse des Erdkörpers - Es steht mit ihm in nächster Sympathie. Sollte nun Magnetkugel nicht Lust zur Rotation haben und eine Terrula seyn? (Fragmente, § 5 9 8 ; III, 661)

He also speculates on the terellan movement of a suspended dagger: "Uber das Phaenomen der Bewegung des Degens - wenn er am Stichblatt aufgehängt ist - nach den Bewegungen eines silbernen Löffels" (Β

62 63

64

Fuhrmans, Schelling, Briefe, I, 392. William Gilbert, De Magnete (London, 1600), trans. P. Fleury Mottelay (reprint New York: Dover, 1958). Walter Jung, "Gravitation," in Physik, ed. Walter Jung (Frankfurt/aM: Fischer Verlag, 3rd ed. 1981), pp. 182-183. Cf. Newton, Principia, "Mass," Definition 1 and Explanation.

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§ 273). Six years after Novalis' death, Ritter wrote to Karl von Hardenberg (22 April 1807): Von Novalis kenne ich einige Fragmente in seinen Papieren, vom Degendrehen, u. der Rotation als galvanischem Phänomen; dann die Stelle in sfeinen] Schriften. Im Ganzen möchte man mehr von ihm über diese Dinge wünschen, aber schon das Wenige giebt, daß er darinn zu Hause war; u. erst zu einer Zeit drum, wo er größeres zu bedenken hatte. Daß Terrellen, (Kugeln von Eisen) von selbst rotiren, ist mir nicht bekannt, so oft auch vor u. nach Willl[iam] Gilbert der Versuch vorgeschlagen u. ausgeführt wurde. Aber auf Campetti's Hand rotirt u. nutirt eine Kugel von Zink etc.65

Ritter's reference to the "Fragmente" may well be to §§273 and 598 (III, 598, 661), quoted above; his reference to "die Stelle in s[einen] Schriften" which Richard Samuel and Gerhard Schulz could not identify (III, 1097 n.),66 most certainly is to the Scribe's terellan experiment in Klingsohr's Märchen: Auf einmal brachte der Vater ein zartes eisernes Stäbchen herein, das er im Hofe gefunden hatte. Der Schreiber besah es und drehte es mit vieler Lebhaftigkeit herum, und brachte bald heraus, daß es sich von selbst, in der Mitte an einem Faden aufgehängt, nach Norden drehe. . . . Der Schreiber ward bald des Betrachtens überdrüssig. Er schrieb alles genau auf, und war sehr weitläufig über den Nutzen, den dieser Fund gewähren könne. (I, 294-295)

Because he is directed only by Verstand, the Scribe has neither poetic nor scientific imagination. H e is not interested in Ginnistan's transforming the iron rod into a serpent-ring. His list of practical uses fails to survive the test of Sophia's clear water. Novalis, however, demonstrates the "Nutzen" of the magnetic charm, for it guides Eros to Freya: "Die kleine Schlange blieb getreu:/Sie wies nach Norden hin." In a boat made of "geschliffener Stahl," Fable and Eros are magnetically propelled across the sea to Arctur's realm. N o t only iron, but zinc, even fruit and sealing-wax, rotates under the influence of Campetti's sidereal touch. Ritter described these feats to Karl von Hardenberg and explained to him, as well, how to make himself "empfänglich." To control sidereal perception, he must be alert to the body's galvanic response to electrical, magnetic, and gravitational currents. "Hier verrichtet Nerv u. Wille, dasselbe, was die Sonne an den

65

Friedrich Klemm and Armin Hermann, Briefe eines romantischen Physikers (München: Heinz Moos Verlag, 1966), p. 41. " Novalis, III, 1047n, "Die erwähnte Stelle konnte allerdings in S1 and S2 [Novalis Schriften, ed. Friedrich Schlegel and Ludwig Tieck, 2 vols. Berlin, 1st ed., 1802; 2nd ed., 1805] nicht identifiziert werden"; cf. Richard Samuel, "Zur Geschichte des Nachlasses Friedrich von Hardenberg (Novalis)," Jahrbuch der Schillergesellschaft, II (1958), 338-341.

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137

Planeten etc. Wir selbst sind S o n n e . . . ! " In recalling Novalis' account of the terellan "Rotation als galvanischem Phänomen," Ritter draws from the very period in which Novalis was drafting his plans for the completion of "Die Erfüllung." Novalis had ceased to lament the lack of a "Galvanoorgan": "Die Fantasie ist gleichsam das Licht"; the images of this "innres Licht" he considered evidence of galvanic perception. Although he could still ask, "Warum wir wohl keinen electrischen und magnetischen Sinn haben" (III, 660), he had by this time confirmed to his own satisfaction that all perception, indeed all consciousness, was a galvanic process. Because of the galvanic action and interaction of the senses, he could declare: "Die Einth[eilung] in 5 Sinne ist ganz unrichtig" (III, 664). As early as 1798 he referred to galvanism in explaining the "Berührung" and "Übergang" of body and soul: "Seele und Körper wircken galvanisch auf einander - wenigstens auf eine analoge Art" (II, 555). After his first meeting with Ritter (November 1799), he wrote: "Sollte Licht sichtbare galvanische Action seyn - sichtbar Innres seyn und daher die Oberfläche dasselbe reflectiren" (Β §283); "Sollte der Galvfanism] etwas anders seyn, als innres Licht. Spur der Empfindung im anorganischen Reiche" (Β §307). The "Alte Idee der Sympathie," conjured in his conversations with Ritter, brought him to review the sidereal "Kräfte" as galvanic action and reaction. Pursuing the possibility that through galvanism and animal magnetism he might attain a sidereal "Wechselvernehmung," a communion of "Seelenkräfte," he began a series of mesmeric experiments with Julie (III, 578, 596, 602, 614; §§187, 255, 297, 364). Ritter, he reports, seeks to demonstrate that electrochemical reduction is a necessary principle in "Naturphilosophie" as well as in physics. H e cites Ritter, too, on the conservation of matter/ energy: "Nach Ritter verschwindet das Ponderable an Einem O r t e u m an andern wieder zu entstehen." From this idea of conservation, it is but a step to the idea of transsubstantiation: "Ritter nimmt überhaupt die Möglichkeit einer Transsubstantion an" (III, 661-662). "Die Erfüllung" Novalis divided into two halves. "Die ganze erste Hälfte des 2ten Theils muß recht leicht, dreist, sorglos und nur mit einigen scharfen Strichen bemerkt werden." The first half was to contain the "Offenbarung der Poésie auf Erden." The characters from Klingsohr's Märchen assume identity in the real world; the real world is transformed into Märchen. Metempsychosis and transsubstantiation are mere acts of the sidereal power, performed by "Nerv u. Wille." In Klingsohr's Märchen, transsubstantiation was celebrated in a ritual of communion in drinking Sophia's water mixed with the ashes of the Mother. In "Die Erfüllung" transsubstantiation may be willed in the very act of perception, for the barriers of time and space are lifted and

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free interpénétration is possible. "Heinrich... wird Blume - Thier Stein - Stern." The seasons wed; "die Wunderwelt ist aufgethan." Novalis answered Friedrich Schlegel's criticism of Part One by confessing his awkward transitions and his clumsiness "in der Behandlung des wandelnden und bewegten Lebens"; Part Two, he teils Schlegel, is to be a commentary on Part One, but transformed into poetic form: "Die Antipathie gegen Licht und Schatten, die Sehnsucht nach klaren, heißen, durchdringenden Aether" is to be realized in the transfiguration.67 In the first half, separation and division still prevail. In order to release the "blaue Blume" from the fatal course of the seasons, "Heinrich zernichtet diesen Zauber - zerstört das Sonnenreich." Heinrich himself must be made "empfänglich" for the "blaue Blume." His transformation Novalis describes as an "Ubergang in die höhere Natur." In the first half, "das Licht und Schattenreich leben durcheinander." In the verse intended for Astralis, the second half is introduced with the prophecy of a free life in a free world, "Wenn dann sich wieder Licht und Schatten/Zu ächter Klarheit wieder gatten" (III, 675). Novalis anticipates so many narrative possibilities that only he himself could have put them in order. The major event of the first half would clearly have been his adaptation of the "Sängerstreit auf der Wartburg," and in the second half the reunion with Mathilde. Along with the travels and tales, Novalis also promises "Allerhand Wissenschaft poetisirt," "Gespräche... über physik," and Klingsohr's "Poésie der Wissenschaft." With the ultimate "Verklärung," the sidereal perception becomes universal. "Es wird stiller und menschlicher nach dem Ende zu," Novalis says of his resolution: "Das Buch schließt just umgekehrt wie das Märchen - mit einer einfachen Familie. "

67

Novalis, IV, 333; letter to Friedrich Schlegel (18 June 1800).

V. Achim von Arnim: The Galvanic Eye When confronting the problems of perception or the aesthetics of light and color in the works of Goethe, literary critics have turned readily and repeatedly to the Beiträge zur Optik (1790) or the Farbenlehre (1810).1 Although the "Naturwissenschaftliche Schriften" of Achim von Arnim are less accessible than those of Goethe, the effort to understand the light and color symbolism of his literary works in terms of the research reported in his early papers in Gilbert's Annalen der Physik should prove even more rewarding. For one reason: Arnim had the training in physics that Goethe was totally lacking, and he could therefore enter the Newtonian controversy on more secure scientific ground and avoid the awkward polemics that undermine Goethe's position. 2 For another reason: Arnim's participation in the new physics of electricity, magnetism, and galvanism enabled him to posit dynamic relationships that remained only analogical for Goethe. Although Arnim expressed his fascination with the thoroughness of Goethe's observations, especially his account of the physiological and physical colors, he was clearly appalled by Goethe's reckless denunciation of scientific principles: "mit einer Streiterei gegen Neuton, Euler, etc., die seiner unwürdig ist und die wissenschaftlichen Leser von dem Buche zurückschreckt" (An Wilhelm Grimm, 25 Juni 1811).3 He was particularly wary of Goethe's refutation of "diverse Refrangibilität," and

1

2

3

Rupprecht Matthaei, "Die Farbenlehre im Faust "Jahrbuch der Goethe-Gesellschaft 10 (η. s.) (1948), 59-148; Andreas Wachsmuth, "Goethes Farbenlehre und ihre Bedeutung für seine Dichtung und Weltanschauung," Goethe 21 (1959), 70-93; Peter Schmidt, Goethes Farbensymbolik, Untersuchungen zu Verwendung und Bedeutung der Farben in den Dichtungen und Schriften Goethes (Berlin: Erich Schmidt, 1965). Because he had no enthusiasm for the task, Goethe assigned "einen werthen Freund, der sowohl der Physik im Ganzen und besonders diesen Theil ununterbrochene Aufmerksamkeit schenkte," to assemble the bibliography of "Widersacher"; the list when published in the "Nachträge zur Farbenlehre" (1822) already included twenty-seven antagonists. A more comprehensive overview of the reception is provided in Manfred Richter, "Das Schrifttum über Goethes Farbenlehre (diss., Dresden 1936), in which the author attends to 485 publications, pro and con, on the Farbenlehre. Reinhold Steig, Achim von Arnim und die ihm nahestanden, 3 Bde (Stuttgart and Berlin: Cotta, 1904; Nachdruck Bern: Lang, 1970), III, 129.

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h e w r o t e t o G o e t h e c o n c e r n i n g " d a s G e h e i m n i s v o l l e , w a s Sie t r ü b e Mittel n e n n e n " : Ich wohne in dem Hause eines Optikers aus Liebhaberey, wo wir die Versuche allmälig durchzumachen Gelegenheit finden, es ist mir sehr merkwürdig, daß ich bei drey Professoren Physik gehört und mich selbst mehrere Jahre damit beschäftigt habe, ohne je einen Versuch der Art, wie er zu Neuton gehört, gesehen zu haben; seine Theorie habe ich nie geglaubt, aber ich hatte mir die Erscheinungen nach meiner Art gedeutet, indem ich sie als wahr annahm, ich hatte wohl auch an Wirkung und Gegenwirkung dabey gedacht, aber wie tief und allgemein haben Sie das durchgeführt, die Idee des Hauptbildes und Nebenbildes in der prismatischen Erscheinung hat mich ergriffen; das trübe Mittel hingegen ist mir das Geheimnißvolle, nicht das ichs leugne, aber da steckt noch etwas, vielleicht erklärt das der Nachtrag zu Ihrem Werke (An Goethe, 6 Januar 1811).4 W i t h J o h a n n H e i n r i c h P i s t o r , the " O p t i k e r aus L i e b h a b e r e y , " r e p e a t e d t h e e x p e r i m e n t s o f the Farbenlehre

Arnim

and their discussion o f

G o e t h e ' s c o n c l u s i o n s o f t e n resulted " i n den w i d e r w ä r t i g s t e n

Zänke-

r e i e n . " 5 T h e " d r e y P r o f e s s o r e n " w i t h w h o m A r n i m studied p h y s i c s w e r e L u d w i g W i l h e l m G i l b e r t and F r i e d r i c h A l b e r t K a r l G r e n at H a l l e , and J o h a n n B e c k m a n n at G ö t t i n g e n . 6 T h e " m e h r e r e J a h r e " o f his optical e x p e r i m e n t a t i o n c o i n c i d e principally w i t h the p e r i o d o f his scientific r e s e a r c h e s at H a l l e and G ö t t i n g e n ( 1 7 9 8 t h r o u g h 1 8 0 1 ) . T h e c o n c e r n w i t h " W i r k u n g u n d G e g e n w i r k u n g " refers t o the s a m e subjective and o b j e c t i v e i n t e r a c t i o n w h i c h G o e t h e describes u n d e r the headings

of

" P h y s i o l o g i s c h e " and " P h y s i s c h e F a r b e n , " b u t in stressing t h a t h e had i n t e r p r e t e d " d i e E r s c h e i n u n g e n n a c h m e i n e r A r t , " A r n i m is mindful o f his o w n galvanic p r e s u m p t i o n s in " S i n n e s p h y s i o l o g i e " w h i c h distinguish his a p p r o a c h f r o m G o e t h e ' s . T h e a c c o u n t o f the " F a r b e n s ä u m e " o c c u r ring in t h e " t r ü b e s M i t t e l " b e t w e e n p r i s m a t i c " H a u p t - u n d N e b e n b i l -

4

5

6

Quoted in Heinz Härtl, "Arnim und Goethe. Zum Goethe-Verhältnis der Romantik im ersten Jahrzehnt des 19. Jahrhunderts. 2 Teile (diss., Halle, 1971). Steig, III, 94-95, An Wilhelm und Jacob Grimm ("In einem zwischen Weihnachten 1810 und Neujahr entstandenen undatierten Brief"): "auf dem Sopha wird zweimal die Woche über Göthes Farbenlehre disputiert"; III, 129, An Wilhelm Grimm (25 Juni 1811). Gren died 26 November 1798 during Arnim's second semester at Halle; Gilbert succeeded Gren as editor of Annalen der Physik. Referring to his prodigious contributions to the Annalen, Arnim asserts "die Uberzeugung, durch den besseren Theil meiner Beobachtungen manches in der heutigen lebendigeren Ansicht angeregt, zum Beachten der früheren physik. Literatur etwas beygetragen, und mir damals von Hn. Gilbert das Zeugniß verdient zu haben, daß er durch meinen Eifer im Uebersetzen und Zusammentragen im Anfange der Annalen aufrecht erhalten worden sey," in "Antikritik. Jedem das Seine," Intelligenzblatt der Jenaischen Allgemeinen Literaturzeitung (1811), Nr. 72, 573-574.

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der,"7 Arnim finds improperly formulated - "nicht das ichs leugne, aber da steckt noch etwas"; he therefore suggests, apparently with an eye on Goethe's reference to the "unleugbare Doppelbilder" produced by rhombic spar, that in his intended "Nachtrag" Goethe might more adequately explain "das Geheimnisvolle."8 Arnim's confession - Newton's "Theorie habe ich nie geglaubt" - was no mere gesture, polite or politic, to win Goethe's favor. Arnim was indeed as aggressive as Goethe in his opposition to Newton. Arnim's "Aphorismen zur Theorie des Lichts," an unpublished manuscript in the Arnim-Nachlaß in Weimar (GSA 95/U5),9 begins with the declaration: "1. Neuton hat keine eigentliche Theorie geliefert." The seventeen "Aphorismen" (actually eighteen; two are numbered "11") were apparently intended as part of a refutation of Versuch über das Licht (1800) by Johann Jacob Engel, Professor am Joachimsthaler Gymnasium zu Berlin (1776-1787). Arnim judges the attempt to revise Newtonian optics as futile; as he states in the second aphorism: "Die neueste Nachhülfe von Engel ist völlig unwichtig." The failure of Newtonian optics results from prescinding physics from physiology; aphorism 15: "Alle Physik läuft darauf hinaus einen Sinn durch den andern zu construiren durch sich selber kann und soll keiner." To this point Arnim adds: "Jenes gilt besonders gegen Engel." Although his critique of Engel's Versuch über das Licht did not appear in the form Arnim originally intended,10 many of the tenets presented in "Aphorismen zur Theorie des Lichts" are repeated in other essays.

7

Arnim refers to sections 224-240 (Dioptrische Farben, zweite Klasse) in Zur Farbenlehre, Didaktischer Theil; see Goethe, Werke (Weimar: Hermann Böhlau, 1887-1919), II. Abtheilung: Naturwissenschaftliche Schriften, Bd. 1, 94—97. References to this edition will be abbreviated WA in subsequent notes. 8 Goethe's studies of the optical phenomena in double-refracting crystals include "Doppelbilder des rhombischen Kalkspats" (12 January 1813), Elemente der entoptischen Farben (1817), and Die entoptischen Farben (1820); WA, II, Bd. 5, 223-318. ' Walter D. Wetzeis, Johann Wilhelm Ritter: Physik im Wirkungsfeld der deutschen Romantik (Berlin and N e w York: Walter de Gruyter, 1973), p. 104, quotes from the first three lines of aphorism 15, but gives no further account of this unpublished manuscript. 10 Although Arnim indicated at the close of aphorism 15 that a full exposition, presumably to deal with both light and sensation, "erscheint zur Ostermesse" (1800), I have not been able to find this publication. In the ms., "Versuch über das Licht von J.J. Engel" (GSA 213, 13), 9 pp., Arnim argues that Engel's arbitrary division of sensory response, even if it were valid, would still be irrelevant to an explanation of reflection and refraction. The review, "Versuch über das Licht von J.J. Engel," in Friedrich Wolff's Annalen der chemischen Literatur, I (1803), 82-83, is not Arnim's.

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Achim von Arnim: The Galvanic Eye

Following the repudiation of Newton and Engel in aphorisms 1 and 2, Arnim sets forth in 3 and 4 the relationship between light, heat, and electricity." Here he counters the matter-based presumptions of eighteenth-century physics: Newton had defined light as an emission of corpuscles; Lichtenberg and Priestley held that fire was the release of the "Wärmestoff" phlogiston.12 With such contemporaries as Johann Wilhelm Ritter and Henrik Steffens, Arnim turned to the energy-based account of light, heat, and electricity as motion." Arnim's theory of light involves both the chemistry of galvanic processes and the physics of attraction and repulsion. In aphorism 5 he adapts William Herschel's account of the calorific/colorific spectrum: "Die Umwandlung des Lichts in Wärme geschieht bey der Brechung." The differentiation of light and heat in terms of their propagation, conductors and nonconductors, is formulated in aphorism 6. In aphorism 7, he draws on recent experiments with the Voltaic battery. Alessandro Volta had discovered that Galvani's demonstration of electricity in the nervous system of a frog-leg could be accomplished more efficiently without the frog-leg. Galvani had attached wires of different metals to the nerve fibres at each end of the frog-leg; when the opposite ends of the wires were brought into contact, the frog-leg twitched. Volta saw that the frog-leg served as a reagent to the electricity but also as a semi-conductor between the two wires. Volta found that he could accumulate a considerable amount of electricity by elaborating the tripartite structure of two metals and a wet paper.14 In his experiments with the Voltaic pile, Arnim

11

12

13

14

The effort to determine the nature and relationship of electricity, heat, light, and magnetism was a major concern for the physicists of the period; among the accounts by Arnim's contemporaries, see: Hans Christian Oersted, "Ubersicht der neuesten Fortschritte der Physik," in Friedrich Schlegel's Europa, Bd. I, 2 Stück (1803), 2 0 - 4 8 ; Henrik Steffens, Grundzüge zur philosophischen Naturwissenschaft (Berlin, 1807); Johann Wilhelm Ritter, Fragmente aus dem Nachlasse eines jungen Physikers (Heidelberg: Mohr und Zimmer, 1810), facsimile reprint, ed. Heinrich Schipperges (Heidelberg: Verlag Lambert Schneider, 1969). On Lavoisier's "anti-phlogistic" chemistry, see J. R. Partington, A History of Chemistry, IV (London, 1964); on the "corpuscular" vs. "undular" theories of light, see Vasco Ronchi, The Nature of Light (Storia della Luce, 2nd ed. 1952), trans. V. Baracas (Cambridge, Mass: Harvard U . P . , 1970), chs. 5, 6, 7. Max Jammer, Concepts of Force (Cambridge, Mass. : Harvard U . P., 1957), describes the evolution of the idea of energy that accompanied this shift from matter-based physics. Michael Faraday's experiments in the 1830's enabled him to formulate the concepts of conversion and conservation. Before the announcement of the Voltaic battery (20 June 1800), Arnim drew from the accounts of the tripartite structure in Volta's Meteorologische Briefe (Leipzig, 1793) and Volta's "Versuche über die verschiedene Electricität verschiedener Metalle," Gren's Neues Journal (1797), IV, 128.

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did not hesitate to use his eye or tongue as a reagent, and he soon came to the conviction that sensation was itself a galvanic process. Aphorism 7: "Dreyfacher Elektrischer. Dreyfacher gefärbter Zustand. Dreyfacher Zustand für das Gefühl. Für den Geruch." In aphorisms 8 and 11(a) Arnim refers to "die chemische Wirkung des Lichts" and describes the galvanic process of decomposition: "daß alle Ox und Desoxydationen entweder durch Vermittlung des Wassers oder der Elektritizität und das Licht erfolgen." In aphorisms 9, 10, and 16, Arnim accounts for the propagation of light, its reflection and refraction, in terms of the physics of force and pressure: "Es läßt sich alles auf das Gesetz des Hebels bringen es frägt sich wovon kann der reflektirende Körper eine Wirkung erhalten und doch unverändert bleiben sicher nur insofern er die Wirkung zurück giebt."15 Because Arnim was so facile in adapting galvanic chemistry to his theory of light, it may seem peculiar to find him resorting to "das Gesetz des Hebels" to explain reflection and refraction. Yet it was precisely his firm grounding in the physics of meteorological analysis that commanded the attention of his contemporaries. Five of his ten contributions to the Annalen der Physik, Vol.1 (1799), are in response to Jean Henri Hassenfratz's work in aereometry;16 an additional five of his contributions to Vol.11 (1799) are devoted to aereo-, baro-, eudio-, and thermometric problems in meteorology.17 Nor is it necessary to see Arnim's endeavor thus divided between two major fields: meteorology on the one hand, and on the other the concern with electricity and magnetism that prompted his first full length study, Versuch einer Theorie der elektrischen Erscheinungen (Halle, 1799) and the more lengthy of his subsequent essays for the Annalen der Physik, three of which also appeared in Sonderdruck: "Electrische Versuche" (1800; V, 33-78); "Ideen zu einer Theorie des Magneten" (1800; III, 48-64) and the continuation "Über

15

16

17

Cf. Versuch einer Theorie der elektrischen Erscheinungen (Halle: Johann Jacob Gebauer, 1799), "Zweyte Beilage," 132-146; Arnim appends this section on sound waves as a clarification to his account of the "Cohärenz" of electricity; although he rejects the "Atomisten" in favor of the "Dynamiker," Arnim must resort to "das Gesetz des Hebels" to explain the propagation of electricity, 78-81. Otto Mallon, Arnim-Bibliographie (Berlin, 1925; Reprographischer Nachdruck, Hildesheim, 1965). References to Annalen der Physik are abbreviated AdP and documented parenthetically in the text. To Mallon, add Arnim's reports on Louis Bernard Guyton de Morveau: "Ueber einige Eigenschaften des Platins" (AdP 1799; I, 369-376), "Versuche über das Verbrennen des Diamanten" (AdP 1799; II, 387ff), "Electrisches Verhalten des Diamanten" (AdP 1799; II, 470 ff), "Versuche, mittelst des Diamanten das geschmeidige Eisen in Gußstahl zu verwandeln" (AdP 1800; III, 65-90).

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Achim von Arnim: The Galvanic Eye

die Polarität" (1800; VIII, 8 4 - 1 0 8 ) ; "Bemerkungen über Volta's Säule" (1801; VIII, 163-196 and 257-283). Arnim's meteorological investigations, just as his electrical, galvanic, and magnetic experiments, address the dynamics of motion, pressure, and force. Under the direction of Professors Gren and Gilbert at Halle, Arnim had become expert in the methodologies of dynamic science: he knows the history of barometric analysis, from Torricelli's observations on atmospheric pressure upon a column of mercury down through John Dalton's laws on the pressure of water-vapor in air.18 Arnim has occasion to correct Alexander von Humboldt for ignoring the factor of temperature in his eudiometry, evoking Boyle's law on the relation of pressure and volume of a gas at a constant temperature. 19 Leonhard Euler's equations on the continuity of motion (d'Alembert's principle) are accurately applied. In his two-part commentary on Say's aereometer, Arnim shows an adept facility with Toricelli's theorem of relation, Mariotte's law, and the application of Bernoulli's equation in measures of pressure and force. 20 H e delights, too, in the contradiction (d'Alembert's paradox) encountered in Lagrange's theorem of irrotational motion, the influence of forces which have a single-valued potential. Arnim himself had an abundant share of that mathematical zeal which he attributes to Cardenio in Halle und

Jerusalem (1811):

Mich fand die Morgenröte schon bei meinen Büchern Es schien, als wenn die Wissenschaft hier neuen Lauf gewonnen, der träge Buchstab wurde Geist-durchdrungen, in allem Leben wurde Freude, und Kühnheit ward in allem Denken O Seligkeit, wenn ich den Lauf der neu entdeckten Sterne mit meiner Formel kühnlich aufgelöst.21

" In his letter (10 May 1800) to Alexander Nicolaus Scherer, Allgemeines Journal der Chemie (IV, 659-668), Arnim writes: "An meine Sammlungen zur Meteorologie, von denen schon zur nächsten Messe der erste Theil erscheinen soll, werde ich jetzt ungestörter fortarbeiten"; here he attaches a summary, "meinen Plan bey diesen Sammlungen, meine Idee, welche ich mit Meteorologie verbinde." Although this volume was apparently not completed, Arnim has occasion to recount "Beobachtungen, Resultate, Gesetze" in his critique of Humboldt's "Ueber einige bisher nicht beachtete Ursachen des Irrthums bei Versuchen mit dem Eudiometer" (AdP 1800; IV, 308-329). " Critique of Humboldt (AdP 1800; IV, 91-95 and VI, 414-^23); see also "Beschreibung neuer Barometer mit einigen Zusätzen" (AdP 1799; III, 311-333). 20 Versuch einer Theorie der Elektrischen Erscheinungen, "Zweyte Beilage," 132-146; Arnim's account of wave propagation is based on Leonard Euler's application of the continuity principle to sound-waves in Euleri tentamen theoreiae Musicae, posthum. (St. Petersburg, 1789). "Beschreibung eines Areometers von ganz neuer Einrichtung" and "Anweisung zum Gebrauche des Areometers" with "Allgemeiner Beweis des Marriotischen Gesetzes" (.AdP 1799; II, 230-245). 21 Halle und Jerusalem (1811), in Sämtliche Werke (Berlin: Expedition des Arnimschen Verlags, 1846), Bd. 16, 185.

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Although there may be other less flattering autobiographical touches in his characterization of Cardenio, the cumulative evidence of his own scientific accomplishments as a student at Halle would render the portrait here a modest self-reflection. The manuscript, "Aphorismen zur Theorie des Lichts," was penned after his move from Halle to Göttingen. Because of Ritter's claims of priority, the date of this manuscript is significant. It cannot be denied that many of the ideas presented in Arnim's "Aphorismen" are also contained in the letter Ritter addressed to Arnim at Göttingen (6 May 1801). Without mentioning that he had already delivered his paper, "Bemerkung zu Herschel's neueren Untersuchung über das Licht" (Jena, February 1801), Ritter provides Arnim with a thorough schematic summary of his study: Meine neuste Beschäftigung ist optischer Art. Ich habe chemischen Dualismfus] im Licht aufgefunden. Dann auch auf der Seite des Violetts noch eine ganze Region unsichtbfar] 1. Strahlen - so daß das ganze Farbenspectrum nun chemisch so aussieht: äuß. [erste] äußerste Unsichtbfar] 1. Grenze Gr.[enze] Unsichtb[ar] 1. Str.fahlen] Strahlen des Violetts Blau Grün Gelb des Roths Roths Maxim[um] Max.[imum] von Oxfygeniren] von Hydr[ogeniren] Oxygen Hydrogen

T o the above scheme, Ritter asserts his intention: "Ich gebe nächstens etwas über das Licht heraus."22 Arnim's "Aphorismen zur Theories des Lichts" can be dated with certainty one year before this letter from Ritter. To be sure, Ritter alone deserves the recognition he has gained for the discovery of the ultraviolet rays. Arnim, however, had already investigated the "chemischer Dualismus im Licht" at the beginning of his first semester at Göttingen the year before. He would only recently have learned of Herschel's discovery of the invisible heat-producing rays, for these papers were read at the Royal Society in London in March and April, 1800.23 And he had not yet learned that Anthony Carlisle and 22

Else Rehm, "Unbekannte Briefe Johann Wilhelm Ritters an Armin, Savigny, Frommann, Schelling und andere aus den Jahren 1800-1803 "Jahrbuch des freien deutschen Hochstifts. (Tübingen: Max Niemeyer Verlag, 1971), pp. 37-41. Ritter's lecture read to the Naturforschende Gesellschaft in Jena (February, 1801) is printed in Die Begründung der Elektrochemie und Entdeckung der ultravioletten Strahlen von Johann Wilhelm Ritter. Eine Auswahl aus den Schriften des romantischen Physikers, ed. Arnim Hermann (Frankfurt/Main; Akademische Verlagsgesellschaft, 1968), pp. 57-73.

21

"Investigation of the Powers of the prismatic Colours to heat and illuminate Objects: with Remarks, that prove the different Refrangibility of the invisible rays of the Sun" (read 24 April 1800), Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society of London (London: Richard Taylor, 1800), pp. 255-283 and 284-292.

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William Nicholson had built the first Voltaic pile in London (30 April 1800) and had observed the decomposition of the water solution into oxygen and hydrogen (2 May 1800). These discoveries, along with Volta's letter to the Royal Society, were not officially presented until 26 June 1800, subsequently reported in Nicholson's Journal of Natural Philosophy, IV (July 1800) and then in Gilbert's Annalen der Physik, VI.24 In his "Electrische Versuche" (AdP 1800; V, 33-78), Arnim cites from several of Volta's earlier papers on the production of electricity with two metals25 and, as in aphorism 11 (a), refers not to Nicholson and Carlisle but to Miss Fulhame's account of the oxydation and desoxydation process.26 After the publication of the Royal Society papers, Arnim sent Gilbert the addendum: "in den Nicholsonschen Versuchen, (Annalen, VI, 359,) sehe ich einige meiner... Versuche, besonders über die Reductionen in der Kette bestätigt" (AdP 1800; VI, 472). Echoes from the "Aphorismen zur Theorie des Lichts" begin to appear in the essays written during his first semester at Göttingen. In Göttingen Christoph Girtanner had been active in researching electrical decomposition of various substances in relation to color. On his way to Göttingen, this is the work that Arnim read, as he confirms in the opening of his letter to Alexander Scherer, dated "Göttingen, den 20 Mai 1800." The letter goes on to credit Ritter for his formulation of "das Gesetz der dreyfachen Verbindungen" noted in aphorism 7. Arnim then relates Ritter's experiment "über das Leuchten des Phosphors im Stickgas"27 with Girtanner's essay "über den Sauerstoff als Grund der Reitzbarkeit." 28 He adds, however, that "Girtanner's Idee über die Farben" had been presented, "früher u. vollständiger," in Bugny's analysis of the chemical spectrum from the red of oxygen, the green of nitrogen, to the blue of hydrogen. Arnim introduces his logarithmic formulae for cubic measures of the

24

25

26

27

28

"On the Electricity excited by the mere Contact of conducting Substances of different Kinds. In a Letter from Mr. Alexander Volta..." (read 26 June 1800), Philosophical Transactions, pp. 403^31. Arnim cites Carlisle and Nicholsen, AdP 1800; VI, 347, 353. Before his account of Volta's "Verbindung von Leitern" as "Wirkung in einer unterbrochenen Kette" in "Electrische Versuche," AdP 1800; V, 50-51 (see note 14 above), Arnim had affirmed Volta's conclusions on the relation of the chemical and the electrical processes, "Ueber die chemische Wirkung der Metalle auf einander" AdP 1800; IV, 428-433, and "Anmerkungen," 436-437. Miss Fulhame, Ueber die Wiederherstellung der Metalle (Göttingen, 1798), in Arnim's "Electrische Versuche" AdP 1800; V, 38-40; see also AdP 1799; II, 274. Ritter, Darstellung der neueren Untersuchungen über das Leuchten des Phosphors in Stickstoffgas (Jena, 1800). Girtanner, "Uber den Sauerstoff als Grund der Reizbarkeit," Allgemeines Journal der Chemie 1800; IV.

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specific and absolute gravity of oxygen and hydrogen as a means of correcting Bugny and Girtanner: Ich glaube, man könnte diese Idee so modificiren, daß man zwar jedem Stoffe seine Grundfarbe (Verhältniß zum Sauerstoff) dem Sauerstoff aber keine gebe, sondern daß dieser durch seinen Zutritt (so wie jene durch die Verbindung mit einander) jede der übrigen in alle verschiedene Farben verwandeln kann.

Arnim explains that his intent to meet with Girtanner in Göttingen to discuss this research had failed because of Girtanner's sudden and unexpected death.29 Arnim's "Anmerkungen zur Lichttheorie" (AdP 1800; V, 465-471), dated "Göttingen, den 30sten Mai," proposes that light and color are galvanic responses to electrical forces. In a gloss note opposite aphorism 7, Arnim wrote: "Das elektrische Licht ist einerley beym positiven und negativen Funken." Color results from the chemical action of the electricity, not simply from the spark of electric light. In the "Electrische Versuche" he had reviewed the differences between physically produced electricity, such as observed in the friction of glass plates in van Marum's machine,30 and chemically produced electricity, "wenn man Zinn und Silber auf einem angefeuchteten Tuche, einander berühren läßt." 31 In his succinct formulation: "Man kennt bis jetzt nur zwei Arten der Entstehung der electrischen Entgegensetzung: Veränderung der Lage und Veränderung der Mischung," Arnim holds to the assumption that electricity is always present in matter, and that such changes as induced by friction or oxydation intensify negative and positive opposition. In the "Anmerkung zur Lichttheorie" he suggests that sensation, indeed life itself, may be the galvanic reaction to such physical and chemical changes: "Mechanische und chemische Bewegung sind sich gegenseitig in der galvanischen Bewegung so sehr Mittel und Zweck, daß man von dieser Seite das Leben als ein durch Herstellung des chemischen Gleichgewichts gestörtes mechanisches, und durch Herstellung des mechanischen Gleichgewichts gestörtes chemisches betrachten könnte" (AdP 1800; V, 65). In "Einige electrische Bemerkungen" (AdP 1800; VI, 116-119) he provides further elaboration of his aphorisms on light. Here he links Herschel's observations on the photochemical and thermal effects of the prismatic colors on silver salts not only with Carl Wilhelm Scheele's "Reduction des Hornsilbers durch das gebrochene

29

30

31

Letter to Alexander Nicolaus Scherer (20 May 1800), Allgemeines Journal der Chemie 1800: IV, 659-668. Christoph Girtanner died 17 May 1800. Martin van Marum, Beschreibung einer großen Elektrisirmaschine und der Versuche, I (Leipzig, 1786), II (Leipzig, 1788). "Electrische Versuche" AdP 1800; V, 40; Volta, reported in Gren's Neues Journal 1797; IV, 129.

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Licht" but also with Jean Senebier's reduction of "weiße Pflanzen... durch den violetten Strahl."32 Arnim then rephrases his manuscript aphorisms (3, 4, 5): Strahlendes Licht und strahlende Wärme, beide einander entgegensetzt, werden im Prisma getrennt; strahlende W ä r m e ist nur reflexibel, nicht brechbar; der kälteste Strahl, (der violette,) der nach dem weißen die stärkste Lichtwirkung übt, (gegen das salzigsauer Silber,) ist der gebrochenste oder brechbarste, wie man es nennen will, und der wärmste Strahl, der rothe, der reflexibelste ( A d P 1800; VI, 118).

When light, refracted by the prism, is cast upon a plate coated with silver salts, the red end becomes hot, hottest just beyond the visible range, and the violet end blackens, blackest just beyond the visible range. Herschel described the red/violet poles as calorific and colorific. For Arnim, ever alert to the physiological implications of physical phenomena, it was crucial to establish the relevance of Herschel's discoveries to Senebier's earlier commentary on the effect of light and color on plants. The next step was to explain the effect in terms of sensation. As he asserted in aphorism 15: "Alle Physik läuft darauf hinaus einen Sinn durch den andern zu construiren." Although he begins his Versuch einer Theorie der elektrischen Erscheinungen (Halle, 1799) "ohne Verzug aus der Kantischen allgemeinen Kraftlehre," Arnim proceeds no further than his second law before citing the Metaphysische Anfangsgründe der Naturwissenschaft (Riga, 1787), and in summing up he takes his formulation from Schelling's Ideen zur Philosophie der Natur (Leipzig, 1797) and Von der Weltseele (Hamburg, 1798). His primary concern in this theory is to explain the attraction and repulsion of positive and negative electrical charges, but even here he does not neglect the occasion to observe the effects of electrical stimuli on physiological response: "Die lebhafte Einwirkung der Electricität auf das Organ, und die Erhöhung seiner Tätigkeit durch dieselbe."33 Arnim was clearly aware of the philosophical import of his endeavor to connect the physical act, the noumenon, with the physiological sensation, the phenomenon, but suspicion soon accompanied his curiosity for metaphysical speculation. When he defines the limits of applicability in his "allgemeiner Beweis des Marriottischen Gesetzes"

32

Arnim cites the account of Herschel's discovery in "Untersuchungen über die wärmende und erleuchtende Kraft der farbigen Sonnenstrahlen; Versuch über die nichtsichtbaren Strahlen der Sonne," AdP 1800; VII, 1 3 7 - 1 5 6 ; Carl Wilhelm Scheele's "Reduction des Hornsilbers," in Schriften, ed. Hermbstädt, I, 144; and Jean Senebier, "Versuche über die chemische Wirkung des Sonnenlichts," AdP 1799; II, 271.

33

Versuch einer Theorie der elektrischen Erscheinungen, pp. 2 2 - 2 3 and 5 7 - 5 8 ; Arnim briefly discusses physiological responses to electricity and the implications of galvanism.

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(AdP 1799; II, 238-245), he does not hesitate to add his repudiation of the "Kantischer Beweis." 34 By 1801 he was engaged in compiling extensive evidence against the claims in Schelling's Zeitschrift für spekulative Physik. Arnim's scientific effort was so pervasively directed by compilation and demonstration that he seldom pondered or digressed on philosophical implications. His speculations on galvanic sensation are always pointed to the probabilities of experiment and experience. Largely because of Schelling's reputation, the term "Naturphilosophie" grew into gargantuan opprobrium,35 but for better or for worse it is not a term that suits Arnim's scientific endeavor. The subject of galvanic "Reizbarkeit," of course, attracted both "Naturphilosoph" and "Naturwissenschaftler." The evidence that the nervous system was responsive to electric stimuli revived the interest in Albrecht von Haller's doctrine of "Erregbarkeit und Sensibilität" and John Brown's principle of excitation.36 A whole new field of "Sinnesphysiologie" was developed out of the concept that the living organism was a system of galvanic cells joined in "Ketten" electrically responsive to physical and chemical stimuli. Alexander von Humboldt's Über die gereizte Muskel- und Nervenfaser (Possen and Berlin, 1797) was a work to which Arnim often turned in his effort to explain the Lebewesen as a galvanic organism and the sensations of sight and sound, smell and taste, in terms of cellular sensitivity with nerve receptors connected in a "reagierende galvanische Kette." Additional support he drew from

Ritter's Beweis, daß ein beständiger Galvanismus den Lebensproceß in

dem Thierreich begleite (Weimar, 1798). Both August Winkelmann and Joseph von Görres followed, in turn, Arnim's galvanic research in publishing their works on dynamic physiology. Winkelmann adopts Arnim's account of mechanical and chemical "Gleichgewicht" in the organism and acknowledges "auch das von Arnim entdeckte Zusammen-

34

35

36

Kant, Metaphysische Anfangsgründe der Naturwissenschaft (Riga, 1787), p. 80. Arnim objects: "Man hat gegen diesen Beweis mit Recht erinnern können, daß er nicht nur auf unerwiesenen Gründen, auf einer eignen Wärmematerie, ihren Schwingungen, und auf Theilchen, wo alles noch ungetheilt sich darstellt, beruhe, sondern daß er überdies nach diesen Annahmen nichts beweise, weil jene Wärmematerie andern Gesetzen als jede andere Materie folgen müsse." Arnim Hermann, "Schelling: der Dynamismus," in Weltreich der Physik (Esslingen: Bechtle Verlag, 1980), pp. 123-128. Albrecht von Haller, De partihus corporis humant sensihilius et irritabilius (Göttingen, 1752); William Cullen Brown, ed., The Works of Dr. John Brown (London, 1804); B.Hirschel, Geschichte des Brown'schen Systems und der Erregungstheorie (Dresden and Leipzig, 1846); John Neubauer, "Dr. John Brown and early German Romanticism," Journal of the History of Ideas XXVIII (1967), 367-382.

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fallen des Magnetismus mit dem Kohlenstoffe." 37 Görres credits Arnim with the principle of conversion in the opposition of electricity and magnetism and chemical exchange in the polarity of red and violet: "L'électricité détruit le magnétisme comme la chaleur la cohésion, et ainsi que la rayon rouge a la faculté d'oxider, et le violet celle de desoxider, de même le pole boréal de l'aiguille sera le plus oxidable, et le pole austral le plus désoxidable, comme il est prouvé par les expériences d'Arnim."3S In his effort to prove that all sensation results from physical and chemical processes affecting the galvanic response of the sensory organs, Arnim began to explore phosphorescence and photochemical sensitivity. One of his early reviews, "Uber das Leuchten des faulen Holzes und der Johanniswürmchen" (AdP 1799; I, 209-213), deals with the "Unterschied zwischen dem künstlichen und jenem natürlichen Phosphor"; the decaying tree has no control over "die Fähigkeit, das Licht zu absorbieren und zurückzuhalten," whereas the Johanniswürmchen can control the passage of oxygen into the Leuchtorgan. Oxydation is necessary to the phosphorescent light. In another review, J.Bressy's "Uber die Electricität des Wassers," Arnim promises, "wenn sie sich bestätigt," a further report "über das Leuchten des Meeres," but he confesses his scepticism because of Bressy's veneration of "Lebens-Electricität" as "eine neue Sorte von Weltseele" {AdP 1799; I, 377-378). In the "erster Brief" of his lengthy discourse, "Ideen zu einer Theorie des Magneten" (AdP 1800, III, 48-64), Arnim explored "die chemische Beschaffenheit der Magneten." Inquiring about further installments of the "Ideen," Ritter complimented Arnim's accomplishment: "Ich bin mit dem Chemischen des Magnetism noch recht glücklich gewesen." 3 ' Schelling, too, applauded Arnim for his methodology in the Zeitschrift für spekulative Physik.™ This praise from Ritter and Schelling did not long endure, for Arnim was shortly to quarrel with them both. The purpose of Arnim's study of magnetism was to argue the importance of carbon to magnetic cohesion and to demonstrate a carbon and oxygen exchange among the "chemische Veränderungen" of two magnets in

37

38

39 40

August Winkelmann, Einleitung in die dynamische Physiologie (Göttingen: Heinrich Dieterich, 1803); dedication: "Seinen Freunden Johannes Ritter und Achim von Arnim zurückgegeben. " Joseph Görres, "Exposition d'un système sexuel d'ontologie" (Paris, 1804), in Gesammelte Schriften, ed. Wilhelm Schellberg (Cologne: Gilde-Verlag, 1932), II, 212. Rehm, Ritter's letter to Arnim (6 May 1801), p.39. Zeitschrift für spekulative Physik (Jena and Leipzig: Christian Ernst Gabler, 1800; facsimile edition, Hildesheim: George Olms, 1969); l.Bd., 2. Heft, 143.

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water. To this essay he appends his "Versuche über den Einfluß der Eisenmagneten auf Galvanische Erscheinungen." These experiments indicate that the magnetic action upon the frog-legs requires the same "Heterogenität in den sich berührenden Metallstücken" as in the electrical action: the magnets must be of two metals, or one magnet must be used with a second metal, to create the "Dreyfach" galvanic connection: Ein Resultat, welches dem thierischen Magnetismus, (thierischer Magnetismus in der wahren, nicht in der Mesmerischen Bedeutung,) eben nicht günstig zu seyn scheint.

Because his results were "nicht günstig," Arnim's discrimination here between a "wahre" and "Mesmerische Bedeutung" remains paradoxical. Neither mode of animal magnetism had yet received proper scientific demonstration. In the version of "Hollins Liebeleben" narrated in the Gräfin Dolores (1810), Arnim combines the two modes: Hollin treats Maria with the magnet and she then lapses into a magnetic somnambulance.41 In "Wunder über Wunder" (1826) Jarno examines the magnetist's glove with "Lackmus- und Curcumepapiere" and finds it impregnated with acid as "Reizmittel"; the magnets, and apparently the acid as well, are but the mediating instruments of the Mesmeric influence, for the magnetist insists on the primary power of his own "Willenskraft." 42 The reagency of "Lackmus- und Curcumepapier," as might well be expected, Arnim had also considered in relation to the photochemistry of color sensation. For Görres, whose "Organologie" is based on the polarity of universal masculine and feminine potencies, the brain itself is a galvanic battery: "Der Kohlenstoffpol - das kleine Gehirn... der Wasserstoffpol - das große Gehirn"; the optic nerves convert the prismatic colors, the sexually determined potencies of light, into the corresponding chemical spectrum: red is the acid sensation (the masculine, positive pole) and violet is the alkali sensation (the feminine, negative pole).43 Arnim was considerably more cautious: his speculations are sober and reserved and he allows no such flamboyant analogies in his scientific papers. Although many another "Naturphilosoph" had posited the cosmic polarities as male and female, Görres' sexual "Organologie" may have suggested the comparison of the morality of the sexes and the

41

42 43

Sämtliche Romane und Erzählungen, ed. Walther Migge (München: Hanser Verlag, 1962-1965), I, 100. In the first version, Hollins Lieheleben (1802), II, 31-32, Hollin magnetizes first the mother, then Maria, with no magnetic somnambulance in consequence. Sämtliche Romane und Erzählungen, III, 457. Görres, Aphorismen über die Organonomie (Koblenz: Lassaulx, 1803); in Schriften, II, 277-278.

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morality of chemistry with which Arnim closes the narrative of "Mistris Lee": denn beide Worte gut oder schlecht gehören so wenig dazu, wie die Rührung meines chemischen Professors zu den Alkalien wenn er von ihrem traurigen Schicksale sprach, mit den Säuren Neutralsalze zu bilden.44

One of the difficulties of the "Lackmus- und Curcumepapier" analogy for color perception, as Arnim well knew, was that opposing stimuli would be neutralized in the eye. The antagonism between the "couleurs complémentaires," as Jean Hassenfratz had dubbed the blue/yellow and red/green sensations,45 would cancel out all color sensitivity. A related consideration Arnim had included in his repudiation of the "corpuscular" definition of light; as a gloss note opposite aphorism 5, he states: "Licht ist keine Materie sonst müßte sie das Auge neutralisiren." The opponent-process theory of color perception posed the same problem. Arnim, nevertheless, persisted in his investigation into the chemistry and photochemistry of color opposition. In his report "Uber die Wirkung des Lichts auf das rothe Quecksilber-Oxyd" {AdP 1800; IV, 489-490) and "Beobachtungen über die Entfärbung und Wiederfärbung des Berlinerblau" (AdP 1802; X , 363-367), Arnim reviews photochemical relationships similar to the litmus reagency to acids and alkalis, to the oxygen and hydrogen accumulation at the poles of the voltaic pile, and to the darkening and bleaching effect, respectively, of the red and violet rays on silver salts, which Ritter had observed could be repeatedly reversed by inverting the rays.46 His interest in phosphorescence continues, but Arnim, aware of the oxydation process that accompanies the "Leuchten," becomes more concerned whether a measurable heat is produced in the process. The conversion and conservation of energy were mere presentiments which the scientists of Arnim's age could not confirm, yet they observed the relationships with anticipation of some abiding connection between light, heat, electricity, and magnetism.47 Arnim was so well apace with

44 45

46

47

Sämtliche Romane und Erzählungen, II, 274. Hassenfratz, Observations sur les ombres colorees (Paris, 1782). Rupprecht Matthaei, Goethes Farbenlehre (Ravensburg: Otto Maier Verlag, 1971), p. 49, identifies this work as a source for Goethe's "Von den farbigen Schatten" (1793) and the commentary on " H . F . T . " in W A II, Bd. 4, 226-233. Ritter, "Versuche über das Sonnenlicht," AdP 1802: XII, 409-415; see Hermann, Die Begründung der Elektrochemie, pp. 57-73. Κ. L. Caneva, "From Galvanism to Electrodynamics: The Transformation of German Physics and its Social Context," Historical Studies in the Physical I X (1978), 63-159.

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current scientific research that he became impatient over the persistence of such terms as "Phlogiston," "Wärmestoff," "Feuer- und Lichtmaterie." To his translation of Dizé's "Die Wärme als Ursache des Leuchtens" (AdP 1800; IV, 410-418) Arnim appends a series of corrective notes pointing out related research and contrary evidence; to Dizé's contention that light is "nur eine Eigenschaft des Wärmestoffs," Arnim adds a summary of Humphry Davy's experiment "der ganz der Dizeschen Meinung entgegen ist." 48 Although he raised similar objections in his summary of Aldini's "Electrische Versuche" and Fabroni's "Uber die chemische Wirkung der Metalle auf einander" (AdP 1800; IV, 419-437), Arnim finds their experiments relevant to his own research. He opens his "Anmerkungen" with a complaint over "die Unbekanntschaft des größeren Theils der italiänischen Gelehrten mit den Arbeiten ihrer Nachbarn," but the very task of relating the experiments of Aldini and Fabroni to similar research by Lichtenberg and Humboldt and Ritter draws his attention to significant differences. With variations of "die bekannten Lichtenbergischen Figuren," Aldini succeeded in separating by an electrical charge mixtures of such powders as sulphur and minium. Whereas Aldini interpreted the results, the geometric shapes of the electrically charged powders, as evidence of an electrical influence on crystallization, Arnim promptly turns Aldini's research to the problem of galvanic perception in his "Electrischer Versuch" (AdP 1800; V, 384-395). Fabroni's research on the corrosion of metals Arnim also saw as pertinent to his interests. He regrets that most of Fabroni's ideas, "durch die Verspätung der Bekanntmachung seiner Abhandlung um 7 Jahre," have been superceded; nevertheless, his work still contains "höchst wichtige Beobachtungen." Fabroni, in 1792, followed the early work of Galvani and Volta but attended more to the chemical processes accompanying the electrical exchange of two metals : "Die Zeichen von Electricität, die man bei der Berührung zweier Metalle fand, sind eher Folge als Ursach dieser Erscheinung." This premise leads Fabroni to the conclusion that the effect on the senses is chemical rather than electrical: Der von Sulzer beobachtete eigentümliche Geschmack auf der Zunge bei der Berührung zweier Metalle, ist zu den galvanischen Erscheinungen gerechnet worden. Fabroni läugnet, daß diese Erscheinungen überhaupt, und insbesondere jener Geschmack, von dem unbekannten electrischen Feuer abhängen.

48

Humphry Davy, "An Essay on the Generation of Phosoxygen, or Oxygen Gas; and on the Causes of the Colours of organic Beings," in Contributions to Physical and Medical Knowledge, Principally from the West of England, ed. Thomas Beddoes (Bristol, 1799), pp. 9-10, 199-205.

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Arnim, of course, agrees that a chemical exchange is involved, but he opposes Fabroni's claim that the senses react exclusively to the "chemische Wirkung." Arnim then describes the galvanic test with the eye: "die Lichtentwicklung... kann man bemerken, wenn man ein Stück Silber in den Mund, und ein Stück Zinn auf den Augapfel hält, und dann beide verbindet." Arnim describes the duration of this effect in darkness, and the reversal of the effect noted by Ritter. Fabroni asserts that the "Blitz" noticed when the metals are attached to tongue and upper gums is simply a "convulsivischer Eindruck." Arnim counters: "Der Versuch ist mir noch nie fehl geschlagen; er beweist sehr gut, daß die Behauptung des Verfassers... falsch sey." 49 These reviews of Dizé, Aldini, and Fabroni were written before Arnim's move to Göttingen. Since the construction of the Voltaic pile had not yet been announced, Arnim's experiments with electrical charges to the eye and other organs involved only slight amounts of electricity. In his later experiments with Johann Blumenbach, Arnim makes use of a "Batterie von 60 Ketten." In another of the reviews written while still at Halle, Arnim describes Louis Jurine's "Versuch mit geblendeten Fledermäusen" (AdP 1800; IV, 461-464). He accepts the conclusion "daß das Gehörorgan diesen Thieren in Ermangelung des Gesichts diene," but he then raises the question "was auf diesen Sinn wirkt." The comparatively extensive web of nerves throughout the ears and across the "Schnauze," which Jurine observes in his anatomical dissection, might be capable, Arnim suggests, of sensing subtle changes in atmospheric pressure. While the nervous system of the bat provides "eine ausgezeichnete Einrichtung des Organs" for such sensations, perhaps humans, too, have a greater range of sensitivity than has been realized. Arnim directs his speculation into the arena of barometrics: "Aber ist es nicht vielleicht die jedem Körper eigene Luft-Atmosphäre, die eine Folge der Anziehung ist?" Perhaps the practice of passing magnets over the surface of the body acts upon the "Anziehung" of the nervous system: Auch die etwas unangenehme Empfindung bey dem nahen Uberführen eines Körpers über das Gesicht (ohne es doch selbst oder die feinen Haare zu berühren) nach Art der sogenannten magnetischen Curen, läßt sich sehr wahrscheinlich eben daraus erklären. Den Beweis, daß die Beugung (inflexio, diffractio) des Lichts wahrscheinlich nichts anders, als eine Brechung (refractio) desselben in diesen Luftatmosphären der Körper sey: davon an einem andern Orte.

49

Against Fabroni, Arnim also cites Ritter, Beweis, daß ein beständiger Galvinismus den Lebensprozeß in dem Thierreiche begleite (Weimar, 1798), pp. 84—89: "er bemerkte auch außerdem eine relative Finsterniß,... wenn er die Ordnung der Metalle in der Kette umkehrte, das Silber an das Auge, das Zinn an die Zunge lege," AdP 1800; IV, 436.

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Arnim may well have corresponded with Louis Jurine concerning the possibility of a barometric sensitivity in the "Sinnesphysiologie." He records visiting with the naturalist in Geneva in September, 1802.50 Arnim's promise to provide "an einem andern Orte" a further explanation of the barometrics of the reflection and refraction of light is not fulfilled in any of the published essays thus far identified.51 He obviously persists, however, with the hypothesis that the dynamics of pressure and force, attraction and repulsion, are applicable to light. As he phrased it in aphorism 16: "Die Reflexion des Lichts und der Wärme läßt sich doch wohl erklären denn da Reflexion nichts als eine Modification der Wirkung durch den reflectierenden Körper ist so wird es sich auch nach den Gesetzen dieses richten." The fact that in striking the surface of glass or water some light penetrates and some light bounces off, Newton could explain only by assuming that the "corpuscles" of light were emitted in a rapid interchange of "fits of easy reflection" and "fits of easy transmission." 52 Having rejected the corpuscular definition of light, Arnim attributes reflection and refraction to the receiving body. Thus he concludes aphorism 16 with his affirmation that reflection and refraction are explained through "das Gesetz des Hebels": "es frägt sich wovon kann der reflectirende Körper eine Wirkung erhalten und doch unverändert bleiben sicher nur insofern er die Wirkung zurück giebt." The transmission of light Arnim resolves in terms of the "Kraftlehre"; the perception of light he accounts for as a galvanic process. Light stimulates an electrical/chemical response in the eye. In interpreting Newton's Opticks "nach meiner Art," as Arnim told Goethe, "ich hatte wohl auch an Wirkung und Gegenwirkung dabey gedacht." The "Wirkung und Gegenwirkung" of light provides Arnim with a number of the most stunning and effective descriptive moments in his narrative art. The sensation of light as "Funken" is for Arnim a natural image. For example, "Graf Karls Rückkehr zur Gräfin Dolores":

50

51

52

Steig, I, 42, 43, 46, (September 1802) "Der Umgang mit Jurine regte ihn wieder zu physikalischer Fortarbeit an. Hier verfaßte er wohl größtentheils die Aufsätze über Galvanismus und über einige in Deutschland wenig bekannte Schriften, die zu Berlin 1803 in den Annalen der chemischen Literatur erschienen, deren Herausgeber Friedrich Wolff, sein ehemaliger Lehrer am Joachimstaischen Gymnasium, war." Arnim's theory of light and color perception is presented in "Anmerkungen zur LichtTheorie," AdP 1800; V, 465-471 ; "Bemerkungen über Volta's Säule, 1" AdP 1801; VIII, 163-196, 257-283. Sir Isaac Newton, Opticks: Or, a Treatise of the Reflections, Refractions, Inflections and Colours of Light (London: 4th ed. 1730), reprinted by Edmund T. Whittaker (London: G.Bell and Sons, Ltd., 1931), Book II, Part 3, Proposition XIII, 281-282.

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Die Sonne stand ihn im Abendscheine gerade gegenüber, sie blendete ihn und erweckte vor seinen Augen eine Welt von Blumen, wie es kaum die Morgensonne vermag; endlich konnte er hinuntersehen, wo ihn das Linnen sonst geblendet; er wischte sich die Augen, so viele springende Funken erschienen vor ihm. sî

In his reappraisal of Newton, Arnim was particularly concerned with sorting out the physiological from the physical, the subjective from the objective, the imagines rerum from the picturae. Newton did not consider inflection as the result of a collision of the "corpuscles" of light against the surface of a reflecting body; rather than as a deflection, colliding then bounding in another direction, Newton conceived of inflection as a bending of the trajectory of the corpuscles of light, deviating as they approach the surface. According to his concept, the corpuscles underwent a repulsion by the obstacle which increased as the corpuscles came nearer the surface.54 Arnim adapts the "Mariott'sche und Coloumb'sche Gesetze" in explaining the "Anziehung und Abstoßung" of light. Although Arnim distinguishes diffraction from inflection, Newton did not acknowledge diffraction as a separate mode of propagation: he treated it, instead, as another mode of inflection, along with the double refraction of rhombic spar.55 Diffraction, first described by Grimaldi (1665),56 involves shadowy fringes and dark bands, sometimes rainbow tinged, which are always present yet become visible only when the source of light is very small, as when the eye peers at the light through narrow slits, or between parallel wires : "die Lichtstrahlen am Draht" which Arnim refers to in the gloss note opposite aphorism 15," or the "springende Funken" he describes as Graf Karl squints into the sun. The phenomena of double refraction, which Goethe treated in Die entoptischen Farben, Arnim appropriates metaphorically several times in his literary works, most extensively in the "Elegie aus einem Reisetagebuch in Schottland," Waller's double refracting vision of "südlicher Glut" in "nordischem Eis." Alone in Scotland, Waller remembers how Fiametta, the little flame, tossed his red crystal of "Doppelspat" into the sea:

53 54 55 56

57

Sämtliche Romane und Erzählungen, I, 51-52. Opticks, Book II, Part III, Prop. Vili, IX, X , 262-276. Opticks, Book III, Pan I, Observation 4 and Query 25, 324-325 and 354-358. Francesco Maria Grimaldi, Physicomathesis de Lumine, coloribus et iride (Bologna, 1665); Ronchi, pp. 126-129. Grimaldi, Proposition I. No. 7, describes the "series lucidae" of diffracted light. Closely spaced wires or hairs placed before the aperture of the camera ohsura produced the colored fringes Arnim refers to as "die Lichtstrahlen am Draht."

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Als sie den Stein erblicket, den sorglich in Wissenschaftsliebe Auf den Händen ich trug, daß der Anbrach nicht leid', Rötlicher Feldspat es war mit köstlich großen Kristallen, Wie er nirgends als dort schmücket den alten Granit; Ei da lachte sie laut, und riß mir den Stein aus den Händen, Warf ihn über den Weg, daß er zum Meere hinrollt.58

The fact that rhomboid spar refracts in two directions, producing distinct "Haupt- und Nebenbilder," and that these rays can be shut off and restored by rotating one of two superimposed crystals a quarterturn, made it necessary for Newton to add an account of "sides" to his already problematic account of "fits" of light.59 Arnim easily adapted Newtonian atomism into his dynamic conception; inflexio and diffractio could both be explained as modes of refraction adhering to "das Gesetz des Hebels": the pressure and force of the "Luftatmosphäre der Körper," the attraction and repulsion, the tension and cohesion of the "reflectirende Körper." Goethe saw in the double refraction of spar a model of perception: the simultaneity of imagines rerum and picturae, "Taten und Leiden des Lichtes": Tief ist der Kristal durchdrungen: Aug in Auge sieht dergleichen Wundersame Spiegelungen.60

Arnim, too, considered the double-refraction of spar as prototypical of the subjective-objective moment in perception. The so-called "optical illusion" occurs only when the perceiver becomes aware of a difference between what he sees and what is actually there. Double-vision provided Arnim with a ready metaphor for describing subjective and objective perception. Thus he uses optical doubling in Halle und Jerusalem: Cardenio... (in dem er [die Gestalt]... umfassen will, verdoppelt sie sich, er tritt zurück) Wie ist das, sehe ich zwei Gestalten? verwirrt die Liebe mein Gehirn? Die Gestalt einfach hat dir der Mond, der zweifelnd an der Erde Rand noch weilet, ob er sein züchtig Auge auf uns werfen kann, ein Trugbild dargestellt?"

Mistress Lee's dream-vision of the "zwei leuchtende Kugeln wie die Sonnen" which appear on either side of the moon, Arnim may have

58 59 60

61

Sämtliche Romane und Erzählungen, I, 426-429. Opticks, Book III, Part I, Query 26, 358-361. "An Julie," 11. 18-20. Goethe's poem, addressed to Julie Gräfin von Egloffstein (17 May 1817), describes the entoptic phenomena observed through Seebeck's apparatus; in Matthaei, Goethes Farbenlehre, pp. 126-127. Sämtliche Werke, XVI, 215-216.

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taken from an actual account of such "atmosphärische Meteore." 62 So, too, of course, his description of the Brocken-Figuren, Hollin and Maria as "Schattengestalten" borrows from the popular lore.63 The fascination with optical illusions that persists in his literary works Arnim wields with ethical as well as aesthetic determination. If the polarities of the "Naturphilosophie" were imposed here, the subjective illusions, those wrought in the act of perception, could be called positive, and the objective illusions, those apparitions mechanically contrived, negative; the former sympathie, the latter satiric. Psychological conjurations, because they draw their ethical or aesthetic purport from the situation, vary from negative to positive; for example, Esther's "Gesellschaftskomödie" with "Luftbilder" in Die Majoratsherren (1820).64 In the subjective illusion ("subjective" in the optical sense) Arnim emphasizes the beholding eye: "Das Licht ans Auge sich tut hangen/Daß auch die Ferne seine sei" he writes in the Böhme-Gedicht of Sela's sight inspired by Aurora.65 Arnim's phantasmagoria all serve a satiric purpose. Prediger Frank's attempts at a sexual "Verbindung... notwendig zu meiner Ausbildung" are accompanied by such mechanical "Täuschungen"; with the Professor's wife, the "Phantasmagoric, wodurch in einem dunkeln Zimmer allerlei Gegegenstände, vermöge einer sehr vollkommnen Zauberlaterne, in überraschender Abwechslung dargestellt wurden"; with Gräfin Limonie, "brachte der Druck ihrer Hand einen hohen Feuerstrahl hervor, der sich in einem brennenden Bogen niedersenkte: es war Spiekwasser, das künstlich durch die Flamme gedrückt also brannte und duftete." 66 In his "Beobachtungen über scheinbare Verdoppelung der Gegenstände für das Auge" (AdP 1800; II, 249-256), another of those essays written shortly before his move from Halle to Göttingen, Arnim addresses the difference between physical and physiological doublevision. He sets forth a simple experiment, demonstrating, in modern 62

65

64 65 66

See William Hyde Wollaston, " O n double Images caused by atmospherical Refraction," Philosophical Transactions 1800, pp. 239-254; Sir Walter Scott, "Captain Gunman's Journal" (an account of "three suns, with two demi-rainbows; and all within one whole rainbow") in Life of John Dryden (Edinburgh: Ballantyne, 1808), pp. 257-259; Antonio Minasi, Dissertazione prima sopra un fenomeno volgarmente detto Fata Morgana (Rome, 1773). J. L. Jordan, "Beobachtung des Brockengespenstes," in J. F. Gmelin's Gättingensches Journal der Wissenschaften 1798; I, 110-114. Arnim did not include an account of the Brocken apparition in his original version of Hollins Liebelehen. Sämtliche Romane und Erzählungen, III, 50-52. Sämtliche Romane und Erzählungen, II, 359. k. Sämtliche Romane und Erzählungen, I, 117 and 121-122; cf. Arnold's phantasmagoria in "Die Weihnachts-Ausstellung" (1817), II, 726.

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terms, the binocular "Hemmungsmechanismus" and the so-called binocular "Wettstreit." He describes the double image produced when both eyes are fixed on an object, and one eye looks through a narrow tube or a small hole in a card; he notes the left/right inversion and the bright/dark contrast of the two images; he compares this disruption of the normal stereoptic union of the two eyes with the "Haupt- und Nebenbilder" produced by the "verdoppelnden Krystall" and the double-refracting glass constructed "durch Zusammensetzung von Glassplatten von verschiedener Brechbarkeit." Arnim acknowledges a variety of factors disrupting binocular fusion, such as the stereoptic disparation discussed in Thomas Young's account of the focussing of the eye's crystalline lens,67 and crossed and uncrossed "Doppelbilder" in Robert Smith's demonstration of fixation point and the horopter-circle. 68 Because he explains both inflection and diffraction in terms of atmospheric refraction, Arnim may seem close to the Newtonian position. However, his response to Newton was more like Cardenio's response to Wagner: [er] bat sich bald diese Nachricht aus, bald jenes noch aus dem Systeme, wie er jetzt alle Welt aus der Vernunft und den Atomen hat erbaut, und unbemerkt hat er aus alle d e m . . . ein scharfes Schwert gebildet, womit er die Atom-Wirbel all zerhaut."

Arnim, too, stirred the carefully contrived corpuscular theory into an "Atom-Wirbel" with the dynamic premises of the new energy-based physics. Arnim did not endorse the atomist definition of light as rectilinear emission of matter, but followed the dynamist conception of light, similar to heat and sound, electricity and magnetism, as undular radiation of energy. Arnim must have found it strange, and perhaps this accounts for his "Zänkerei" with Pistor, that Goethe did not take up the wave theory against Newton but rejected both on the grounds that dynamism no less than atomism remained bound by a mechanical hypothesis: Der Atomist wird alles aus Theilchen zusammengesetzt sehen und aus dem Dunkeln das Helle entspringen lassen, ohne im mindesten einen Widerspruch zu ahnen; der Dynamiker, wenn er von Bewegung spricht, bleibt immer noch materiell, denn es muß doch etwas da sein, was bewegt wird.70 67

68 69 70

Young, "Observations on Vision" (read 30 May 1793), Philosophical Transactions; Arnim cites from Gren's Journal der Physik (1793) Vili, 415. Young was a student, age twenty, when he presented his first Royal Society paper. He later dealt with the same subject, the perception of objects at different distances, in "On the Mechanism of the E y e " (read 27 November 1800), Philosophical Transactions 1801, pp. 23-88. Smith, A Complete System of Optics (Cambridge, 1782), 2 vols. Sämtliche Werke, XVI, 26-27. WA, II, Bd. 5, 433; cf. Bd. 3, 116.

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For Goethe the eye may be "sonnenhaft," but he had thus denied both ways of accounting for the propagation of light from the sun to the eye, with no alternative but fiat lux." Arnim made the "Wirkung und Gegenwirkung" of light his principal concern. With the physics of atmospheric refraction and the physiology of galvanic electro-chemistry, Arnim at Göttingen soon began sharing in the research of Johann Friedrich Blumenbach. With Blumenbach, Arnim conducted physiological tests with the Voltaic battery.72 The experiments with slight galvanic charges applied to the eye, described in his review of Fabroni, he now performs with Blumenbach's large apparatus with "60 Ketten," attaching electrodes to his ear, nose, tongue, and eye, and wiring his whole body to electric currents for long periods.73 His determination to demonstrate magnetism and electricity in "Sinnesphysiologie" led him into disagreement with Schelling and Ritter. The quarrel with Ritter, "Uber die Benennung der Endpole der Voltaischen Säule" (AdP 1801; IX, 494-496), has been fully documented,74 but not explained. In discussing the decomposition (electrolysis) of oxygen and hydrogen at the negative and positive poles, 71

72

73

74

In place of a propagational theory, Goethe answers the problem of light in terms of his dialectic of "Taten und Leiden"; see, Heinrich Schiperges, Welt des Auges (Freiberg: Verlag Herder, 1978), p. 126-128; Matthaei, Goethes Farbenlehre, pp. 73-77. "Bemerkungen über Volta's Säule," AdP 1801; Vili, 173, 282. If Blumenbach's Voltaic pile was constructed with zinc and silver plates of approximately the same size as those used in the apparatus built for the Royal Society demonstration by Carlisle and Nicholson (which consisted of 32 pairs, capable of producing up to 100 volts), then the 60 pairs in Blumenbach's apparatus presumably produced 150 volts. Dorothee Hüffmeier, "Johann Wilhelm Ritter (1776-1810) und sein Beitrag zur Physiologie seiner Zeit" (diss., Münster, 1961), pp. 52 ff, describes similar electrophysiological experiments performed by Ritter. Rehm, p. 35, "Es ist nicht einfach, die gegensätzlichen Ansichten zu fassen; dies muß einer Spezialuntersuchung von berufener Hand vorbehalten bleiben"; the documentation presented here is thorough. Ernst Darmstaedter, "Achim von Arnim und die Naturwissenschaft," Euphorion 32 (1931), 454—476, avoids the issue: "Auf die weitläufigen Mitteilungen, die sich zum Teil auf Einzelheiten der Voltaischen Säule und auf Fragen der Terminologie beziehen, soll hier nicht eingegangen werden." Paul Hoffmann, "Achim von Arnim über Johann Wilhelm Ritter," Archiv für Geschichte der Mathematik, der Naturwissenschaft und der Technik 10 (1928), 357-362, provides a documented summary, but with no explanation. Herbert Liedke, Literary Criticism and Romantic Theory in the Works of Achim von Arnim (New York: Columbia University Press, 1937), p. 35, apparently accepts Ritter's claim "that some of Arnim's hypotheses had become antiquated" and that Arnim, persisting in error, "maintained his views with youthful stubbornness." John Erpenbeck, "Was euch in meinem Werken quält..." Goethe Jahrbuch, Bd. 99 (1982), 299-314, exaggerates Arnim's theoretical speculations and ignores his arguments with Schelling and Ritter.

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Ritter used the terms generally employed in describing the Voltaic pile: the silver electrode is the hydrogen pole and zinc the oxygen pole. Because Arnim was concerned with the continuing sequence in a chain of "Leiter erster und zweiter Klasse" (electrodes) separated by a "feuchter Leiter" (electrolyte), he observed that with every added set, the electro-chemical process would be accelerated; but with a single layer added, silver or zinc, the process was retarded. If both the outer plates were silver, for example, less oxygen would gather.75 Indeed, if both the outer plates were altered - from: 0pole-Zn /Ag-Zn/ Ag-Zn /Ag-H pole, to: 0pole-Ag-Zn/Ag-Zn/Ag-Zn/Ag-Zn-H pole - then, as Arnim pointed out in the apparatus of Carlisle and Nicholson, "Ihr Silberpol ist eigentlich der Zinkpol, ihr Zinkpol der Silberpol." When Arnim presented this paradox in his "Bemerkungen über Volta's Säule,... Erster Brief" (AdP 1801; VIII, 163-196), Gilbert appended a lengthy note with the plea: "bei der Construction der Säule die überflüssige Metallplatte an den Polen fortzulassen, damit die Nahmen wirklich mit den Endplatten harmoniren." Gilbert fully understands Arnim's argument, but he calls for the uniform use of the terms to avoid confusion: "Freilich ist es unangenehm, Bedeutungen von Kunstwörtern zu verwechseln; allein in diesem Falle dürfte es doch noch ohne Verwirrung geschehen." Ritter, however, chose not to understand Arnim. In Ritter's "Versuch und Bemerkungen über den Galvanismus der Volta'schen Batterie... Vierter Brief" {AdP 1801; IX, 212-262), Arnim found himself "als Widersacher meiner eignen Behauptung angeführt, so daß ich mich ordentlich durch mich selbst überrascht fühlte." The difference in the "Benennung" was simply this: Herr Ritter bestimmt seine Pole nach jenen innern Bestimmungsgründen in der einzelnen Kette; ich nach der äußern Bestimmung; welche Metallplatte die äußerste an jeder Seite der Batterie. 76

Why was Arnim so stubborn in holding to this seemingly trivial distinction? Because adding or subtracting conductors, no less than opening or closing the circuit, was crucial to his concept of the galvanic action of the senses. Opening or closing the eyes does not merely open or close a circuit, it adds or substracts a layer in the galvanic chain. Because Arnim tried to define an organic galvanism, he sought an 75

76

If both outer plates are zinc, less hydrogen would gather: Arnim mistakenly concluded that none gathered (AdP 1800; V, 59), but had corrected the error: "Daß ich damahls kein Hydrogengas sah, war natürlich, weil es überhaupt an der einfachen Kette in zu geringer Menge sich entwickelt, um selbst jetzt wahrgenommen zu werden." Cf. Ritter, "Untersuchungen zur Beantwortung der Frage: Welche Seite, welches Ende der Voltaischen Batterie hat man, Gründen zu Folge, das Zink-, welches das Silberende derselben zu nennen?" (11 May 1801), AdP IX, 212-236.

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explanation of the electrical exchange which was not predicated on two metals. Another "Dreyfache Verbindung" might do as well. He stressed the importance of the oxydation process in formulating "das allgemeine Gesetz flüßiger Leiter," and he concludes his "Erster Brief" with a section "Über die Wirkung der Voltaischen Säule auf Wasser und andere Flüßigkeiten." This section begins with the remark that may well have provoked Ritter's attack: Ich kann nicht läugnen, Herrn Ritter's Versuche scheinen mir noch nicht ganz vollendet, noch nicht ganz befriedigend. Es fehlte die genaue Analyse der erhaltenen Luft, des Wassers und der Schwefelsäure in dem Hauptversuche über die Zusammensetzung des Wassers.

Ritter professes himself surprised that Arnim should place such an emphasis on the wet materials in the Voltaic battery, since all experience had shown that the contact of the two metals was the crucial factor.77 Here, of course, Arnim was closer to the truth than Ritter, and he rightly defends his position: "Nicht die Einwirkung des Silbers oder des Zinkes auf den feuchten Leiter, sondern ihre Einwirkung auf einander durch diesen, bringt in jenem merkwürdigen Voltaischen, von mir daselbst angeführten Versuche,... die entgegengesetzten Electricitäten hervor." Gilbert was reasonable in claiming that Arnim should accept the prevailing terminology for the poles. Ritter was mistaken, apparently on purpose, in charging that Arnim adhered to a disproven position. There were no doubt personal reasons for Ritter's attack on Arnim. Because Arnim's "Bemerkungen über Volta's Säule... Erster Brief," dated 10 March 1801, had already been submitted to the Annalen before Ritter's "Vierter Brief" was printed, as Gilbert's introductory note explains, Arnim had no opportunity to consult Ritter's most recent galvanic experiments. When Ritter writes to Arnim, "mein herrlicher Freund," on 6 May 1801, he makes no mention of his objections to Arnim's essay; he does raise another question: "Können Sie mir auf einige Jahre 200rh = 40 Louisd'or leihen?"78 The letter to Gilbert's Annalen containing the attack on Arnim is dated 15 July 1801. Then, in the essay "Vom Chemischen des Magnetismus in seinen Beziehungen zum Galvanismus," Ritter further accuses Arnim of a subtle mode of plagiarism which he calls "synonyme Bestätigungen."79 77

78 79

Ritter, "Versuche und Bemerkungen über den Galvanismus der Voltaischen Batterie, 4. Brief," AdP 1801; IX, 238-239. Rehm, p . 4 0 ; Ritter to Arnim (6 May 1801). Rehm, p. 35; Ritter's accusation against Arnim is repeated by Oersted, Breve fra og til Hans Christian 0rsted. 1. Sämling (Kopenhagen, 1870), p. 123.

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Arnim's letter to Gilbert's Annalen, 2 January 1802 {Ad? 1802; X I , 131-136), refers to the "MißVerständnis... damals bei Ritter in seiner Widerlegung meiner Polbenennung." Arnim proceeds to repeat from his "Erster Brief" his argument that a conductor of the second class is necessary to "eine electrische Vertheilung zwischen Leitern," and from his "Zweiter Brief," the proposition: "In der Wärme-Capacitätsänderung, (gewöhnlich durch Zersetzung,) der Nichtleiter [Leiter zweiter Ordnung] entsteht ihr electrisches Verhältnis gegen einander oder gegen Leiter." The link between temperature change and electricity provided one more clue to the galvanic action of the senses. Arnim had already confirmed an electrical process in water, measurable in the temperature extremes of boiling and freezing.80 The "Zweiter Brief" on Voltaic phenomena addresses exclusively "Wirkungen der Voltaischen Säule auf vegetabilische und animalische Stoffe" (AdP 1801; Ville, 257-270). He confesses that he is not prepared to demonstrate "eine stete Wechselwirkung" of the galvanic process; nevertheless, "die Wirkung auf Pflanzenund Thierstoffe außerhalb ihrer organischen Verbindung" had enabled him to observe significant changes in temperature and in chemical substance. Most important are the effects of electricity on sensation: "Alle Sinne werden also, wie es scheint, nicht unmittelbar durch den Galvanismus afficirt; nur, was dem übrigen Körper Gegensatz der Wärme-Capacitäts-Aenderung ist, wird im Auge Licht." The disagreement with Schelling might also be called a problem of "Benennung," but it derived from no such mean "Mißverständnis" as the quibble on naming poles, rather from Arnim's endeavor to confirm electricity and magnetism in organic processes.81 Following the 80

81

"Electrische Versuche," AdP (1800); V, 42 ff. Steffens, "Über die Vegetation," Jahrbuch der Medizin (1808), III, 5 7 - 5 8 : "Schon Arnim, später Winterl und Kastner, endlich Ritter haben deutlich bewiesen, daß das frierende Wasser von dem flüßigen, noch mehr von dem kochenden, in Rücksicht der Spannung, verschieden ist." Arnim's effort to affirm an autonomous organic electricity and magnetism ran counter to Henrik Steffens' attempt to trace an evolutionary permutation of energy through the inorganic to the organic, through inert matter to life forms. Steffens writes to Schelling (18 October 1800): "Denn daß der ganze feste Erdboden mit seinen Residuen einer erloschenen Thätigkeit im ganzen nichts aufweise, als das allmähliche Hervortreten der Entgegensetzung, die sich auf der höchsten Stufe als animalischer und vegetativer Proceß zeigt - hoffe ich als evident zeigen zu können - daß diese zwei Reihen durch Stickstoff auf der einen und Kohlenstoff auf der anderen Seite sich ausdrücken, daß diese Stoffe Repräsentanten des Magnetismus, wie Wasserstoff und Sauerstoff der Elektricität sind, wird, denke ich, kaum einigem Zweifel unterworfen sein." Steffens closes these remarks with the promise: "Mit dem - obgleich nicht ganz verdienstlosen - doch höchst verworrenen Herrn v. Arnim werde ich auch ein paar Worte sprechen." F. W.J. Schelling, Briefe und Dokumente, ed. Horst Fuhrmans (Bonn: Bouvier Verlag, 1962-1975), II, 272.

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announcement of the experiment with the frog-legs in 1791, scientists through the decade hoped to find in Galvanism the "eigentliche Lebenskraft." In 1800, however, Volta's discovery demonstrated that the Galvanic phenomena operated independent of the vital processes. Yet Arnim continued to treat Galvanism in a category of its own; although he saw it as involving magnetism, as well as chemical and mechanical electricity, he held it separate because vital. Schelling scoffed: H r . von Arnim in Halle hat neuerlichst entdeckt, daß auch der Magnetismus unter der Form des Galvanismus stehe. - Wie groß wird aber nun erst die Konfusion werden, wenn man erfährt, daß es mit dem Galvanismus als Galvanismus aus ist, und daß es nie etwas der Art gegeben. 82

This was harsh. But Arnim had taunted Schelling in several essays: he denied Schelling's contention that magnetism should be considered linear polarity, in "Anmerkung, über gleiche Polarität an zwei entgegengesetzten Endpunkten eines magnetischen Stoffes" (AdP 1800; V, 382-383). Then, in "Ubersicht der magnetischen nichtmetallischen Stoffe" (AdP 1800; V, 384-395), he criticized Schelling's geometric construction of dimensionality, and he repudiated Schelling's contention that carbon could carry only a single charge and only metals were capable of sustaining polarity. Arnim, as mentioned above, had already extended the research of Aldini: mixtures of various powders were separated by electricity into a positive charged star and a negative charged circle; Arnim was especially concerned with the relation between color and electric polarity.83 The question whether non-metallic compounds would respond to magnetic polarity as well is raised in "Ubersicht der magnetischen nichtmetallischen Stoffe." This work is a direct continuation of the earlier research Schelling had praised: Auf einem ganz anderen Wege ist Herr von Arnim, der sich um die dynamische Physik durch seine Theorie der electrischen Erscheinungen Halle 1799, deren ich bei einer andern Gelegenheit umständlicher erwähnen werde, verdient gemacht hat, zu demsel-

82 83

Zeitschrift für spekulative Physik 1801; II, l . H e f t , 152. "Electrische Versuche," AdP 1800; V, 35-39; on the basis of the electrostatic separation of 58 mixtures, Arnim concludes: "Der Körper, dessen Farbe die geringste Brechbarkeit hat, wird von zwei an einander geriebenen Körpern immer positiv, der gar kein Licht zurücksendet, immer negativ." Because he is concerned with natural processes, the fact, "daß die Farbe hier wohl nur als Zeichen der chemischen Eigenschaft, als Zeichen der größern oder geringen Sauerstoffanziehung desselben Körpers," cannot detract from the relevance of a color polarity to the law, "Daß von zwei an einander geriebenen Körpern immer der dem Sauerstoffe näher verwandte negativ werde; ein Gesetz, welches bald, wie ich zeigen werde, durch das allgemeine Gesetz für alle Electricitäts-Erzeugung bestätigt und berichtigt wird."

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ben Gedanken - Zusammenhang des Magnetismus mit der Cohärenz gekommen. Er stellt nämlich in einer Abhandlung: Ideen ζu einer Theorie des Magneten (in Gilberts Annalen der Physik III. 1.) den Satz auf, "daß weder das Eisen allein, noch auch die Verbindung des letztern mit dem Sauerstoff in gewissem Verhältnisse, sondern allein die dreifache Verbindung zwischen Eisen-Kohlen- und Sauerstoff in gewissen Verhältnissen die des stärksten und dauerndsten Magnetismus fähige Maße hervorbringe," und den Grund dieser in Erfahrungen nachgewiesenen Thatsache sucht er darinn, daß Kohlenstoff und Sauerstoff zwar zum Magnetismus nothwendig seyen, aber doch, weil zu demselben überhaupt Cohärenz, und zum höchsten Magnetismus außer der chemischen Beschaffenheit, die höchste Cohärenz erfordert werde, - (ein Satz dessen vollständigen Beweis er für die Folge verspricht) noch überdieß ein bestimmtes Mischungsverhältnis der beiden Stoffe erforderlich seye, damit sie nämlich die Cohärenz des Eisens oder jedes andern magnetische Eigenschaften zeigenden Körpers nicht über den Grad vermindern, bei welchem Magnetismus möglich ist.8,1

When Arnim reported his research "Uber die magnetischen nichtmetallischen Stoffe," he specifically answered Schelling's claim that carbonbased matter could carry but one charge, not the polarity of both positive and negative. "Hr. von Arnim hat selbst zur Begründung eines Antheils an den magnetischen Phänomenen," Schelling had acknowledged, "mehrere bekannte und neuaufgefundene Thatsachen zusammengestellt..." and he intended to quote "die vom Hrn. von Arnim bemerkte Wirkung desselben auf aus Holzkohlen der Länge nach geschnittene Nadeln." Schelling adds that should Arnim bring within his theory a substantiation of the evidence of Brugmans' experiments, it would contribute "beträchtliche Fortschritte in der Kenntniß der Körper." Schelling's reference to Brugmans (he writes "Bruggmann" but the reference must be to Anton Brugmans, Beobachtungen über die Verwandtschaften des Magnets, Leipzig 1781, cited by Arnim in his "Ubersicht") has to do with the presence of magnetic activity in carbonbased matter. Arnim not only lists Brugmans' observations, he adds those of Guruyton, Charpentier, Saussure, and Humboldt to his compilation of evidence of magnetism in non-metallic substances; he comments, too, on the recent investigation by Ritter into the magnetism of chromium and metals other than iron. That magnetic polarity could be demonstrated to exist independent of any trace of iron, Schelling fully doubted: "da mir der reine Kohlenstoff durchaus nur den einen Pol (gleichsam in seiner Freiheit) repräsentiert, dasselbe gilt von allen andern Körpern außer Eisen." Iron alone has two poles, Schelling insisted, carbon only one, and then only in relation to another source of attraction or repulsion. Arnim's "Übersicht" not only answers Schelling's case against his "Ideen," it also goes on to oppose Schelling's "drei

84

Zeitschrift für spekulative

Physik 1800; I, 2. Heft, 143-144.

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Dimensionen" with the evidence of chemical process not only in galvanic but in all magnetic activity. Although Schelling continued to adapt from Arnim's essays, Arnim resisted the endorsement of Schelling's System because of the insistence upon the geometric scheme of dimensionality: magnetism presents length, or the line; electricity provides angle; and chemical process involves triangularity.85 With this scheme of dimensionality, Schelling is striving for a dynamic postulate in nature of the "Zeit-Raum Bedingung" in the Kantian Categories. Arnim does not reject the philosophical ambition of this endeavor. But he is too much a scientist to tolerate the intrusion of a philosophical distinction among phenomena which his own experiments have shown to be interrelated: Angenehm war es mir, die in meinem frühern Aufsatze aufgestellte Beobachtung über den Zusammenhang zwischen Cohärenz und Magnetismus von Herrn Schelling in sein System aufgenommen zu finden, (System des transcendentalen Idealismus, Tübingen 1800, S. 184;) doch gestehe ich, daß ich die Coincidenz der a priori dort construirten Linie mit der des Magnets nicht finde, (S. 179,) und glaube, der Magnetismus sey mehr, oder vielmehr etwas anderes als das Construirende der Länge, und nur durch Construction aller drei Dimensionen möglich (AdP V, 393).

Arnim's method of constructing "alle drei Dimensionen" was through the galvanic or voltaic structure of "dreyfache Verbindung." This is the method Arnim applies to his analysis of the magnetic action in both metallic and non-metallic materials: "Das Gesetz der Einheit der Mischung bei der Zweiheit der Klassen der gemischten Stoffe, (Sauerstoff und Nicht-sauerstoff)." Arnim's objections to Schelling's appropriation, or misappropriation, of his experiments on coherence and magnetism are then followed with his own explanation of polarity. He introduced his "Ideen zu einer Theorie des Magneten... 2. Uber die Polarität" (AdP 1801; VIII, 84—108) with a note referring to Schelling's attention to the first installment of "diese Ideensammlung." He must have been disappointed that Schelling failed to rise to debate but stooped, instead, to ridicule his galvanism as passe. Arnim then penned the letter to Schelling which I have found in the previously unidentified manuscript (GSA 223/ U5).86 In this letter to Schelling, Arnim explained the basic physics involved in determining magnetic attraction and repulsion. Although the opening pages of this manuscript draft are missing, Schelling's reply to Arnim, dated 24 February 1801, acknowledges his account of "die Wirkungs-

15

86

Zeitschrift für spekulative Physik 1800; I, l.Heft, 100-136, and I, 2. Heft, 3 - 8 7 ; Schelling, "Allgemeine Deduction des dynamischen Processes." Goethe-Schiller Archiv, Nationale Forschungs- und Gedenkstätten, Weimar.

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weise des Magnetismus." 87 Because the manuscript begins with Arnim's summary appraisal of the four methods, what has preceded becomes fairly obvious. Schelling based his proof of dimensionality on Coloumb's torsion balance and his experiment on the surface distribution of electricity.88 Judging from the account of Coloumb's law in the "Ideen zu einer Theorie des Magneten" and the continuation "Uber die Polarität," Arnim must have insisted on the need to determine mass and resistance in order to give meaning to the concepts of attraction and repulsion. Contrary to Schelling's assertions, Coloumb's law does not invite the reduction of magnetic attraction and repulsion to sheer linearity. Arnim might also have corrected the presumption of surface distribution of electricity. The manuscript fragment begins, mid-sentence, with Arnim's reference to the "Unvollständigkeit" of Saussure's experiments. Presumably the problem here has to do with "Saussure's Auflösungs-Theorie" which Arnim explained in his "Beitrag zur Berichtigung des Streits über die ersten Gründe der Hygrologie und Hygrometrie" (AdΡ 1800; IV, 308-329). In summarizing the four methods, after expressing his misgivings about Saussure's method, Arnim praises Coulomb's measurements of attraction and repulsion, and then confirms Coulomb's work with torsion balance as verifying Priestley's law of electrical repulsion and extending the "Marriottsche Gesetz" in stating "daß sich die magnetische Anziehung umgekehrt wie das Quadrat der Entfernung verhalte." Arnim's insistence upon a methodology that concerns the problems of force and pressure and the laws of attraction and repulsion carries an implicit accusation against Schelling for having abstracted the principle of polarity from its "Wirkungskreis" in electrical activity. Arnim closes his letter with a direct challenge to the anonymous reviewer (Schelling himself) in Schelling's Zeitschrift für spekulative Physik: Vielleicht ist es dem Verfasser der Nachrichten von neuen Entdeckungen angenehm zu erfahren, daß ich die ganze Bitterkeit gefühlt, mit der er im letzten Stücke Ihrer Zeitschrift meine Meinung unrichtig darstellt und ihr Todesurtheil spricht Meine Bitte ist ihm dies zugleich meinen Vorsatz mitzutheilen, einen Streit der Art, weil er in der Wissenschaft förderlich seyn kann, durch keine Antwort zu verläugnen.89

87

88 89

Schelling, Briefe und Dokumente, II, 310-311. Helene Kastinger Riley, Ludwig Achim von Arnims Jugend- und Reisejahre (Bonn: Bouvier Verlag, 1978), p. 48, quotes Schelling's letter to Arnim (24 February 1801) and describes the disagreement as "kleinlich." Zeitschrift für spekulative Physik 1800; I, l.Heft, 122-126. GSA 223/U5. Because Schelling responds to specific phrases here, it is apparent that Arnim's actual letter did not appreciably differ from this draft version.

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Arnim closed the "Ideen... Über die Polarität" with reference to van Swinden's observations on the Farbenstrahlungen "der Nord- und Südlichter" und "deren Einfluß auf die Magnetnadel."90 An adequate proof of the relationship between electricity and magnetism was not forthcoming until Hans Christian Oersted presented his "Experimenta circa effectum conflictus electrici in acum magneticam" (21 July 1820). The relationship had long been assumed; indeed, Arnim was willing to assume even more - the conversion of magnetic into electrical action. "Alle Kettenversuche sind jetzt durch den galvanischen Apparat bestätigt worden; warum sollte der magnetische eine Ausnahme machen? warum sollte nicht eben so gut eine solche Voltaische Batterie aus magnetischen Platten zusammengesetzt werden können?" In "Bemerkungen über Volta's Säule... Dritter Brief," Arnim notes "Das Eisen scheint durch langes Liegen in der Kette magnetisch zu werden." The question of conversion dominated his galvanic experiments, for he wanted to explain what happened to the eye, nose, tongue in the moment of sensation. Because he could stimulate the glow of phosphorus with electricity, and because he had observed the resulting oxydation, he sought for a galvanic activity in the body's phosphorus. He described his experiment with Emmert Reuß, "Wirkung des Lichts auf Hirn- und Nervensubstanz" (AdP 1800; VI, 245-246), as inconclusive in ascertaining a galvanic phosphorescence in "thierischen Stoffen." His experiments with Blumenbach, using the Voltaic battery with "60 Ketten," were more productive. The "Bemerkungen über Volta's Säule" (AdP 1801; VIII, 163-196, 257-283) consists of three letters, the fulmination of Arnim's theory of galvanic process and perception. The "Erster Brief" addresses, first, the relation of the Voltaic battery to galvanic and electrical "Ketten." Here Arnim insists on naming the poles in terms of the additive process. Acknowledging the hydrogen and oxygen decomposition at the negative and positive poles, he proceeds to note temperature changes in the chemical process. Following Herschel's distinction of the calorific and colorific, he describes a series of experiments on the color of electric sparks discharged in various gases. The colors shift from the blue to the red end of the spectrum in terms of oxydation. From the "Aphorisms," written the year before, he reformulates aphorism 6 into one law, and aphorism 3 into a second law." In the

90

91

Jan Hendrik van Swinden, Recueil de mémoires sur l'analogie de l'eléctricité et du magnétisme (à la Haye, 1785). AdP 1801; VIII, 179-180: 1. "Was Leiter in der electrischen Kette ist, sey Nichtleiter in der Lichtkette, und jeder Leiter in der Lichtkette sey Nichtleiter in der electrischen; nur die Oxydationen mit Lichtentwicklung seyen ohne Electricitätsbildung" ; 2. "im

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next section, "Über die Wirkung der Voltaischen Säule auf Wasser und andere Flüßigkeiten," he tests the electrolysis of various liquids in the battery; for example, the decomposition of sulphuric acid into sulphur and oxygen. The accumulations at each pole are further tested for color: first, objectively, by introducing an electric spark or heated wire; second, subjectively, by placing the electrodes from the liquid onto his eye. From his physiological response he can report no significant variations, but in his third section, "Bestätigung," he confirms a connection between galvanic process and physiological response. Relying on "die empfindlichen Sinnelektroskope, Auge, Nase, und Mund," he affirms that "die bekannten Wirkungen," the sensation of light, was directly related to the oxydation present on the Voltaic plates. The "Erster Brief" closes with a promise to further investigate the effects on the sense organs. Arnim's satirical account of the deaf Minister and the magnetic cure in "Wunder über Wunder" may well have derived from the experience reported in the "Zweiter Brief," for Blumenbach's apparatus caused Arnim a period of deafness, and produced a somnambulistic condition in which "die willkiihrliche Bewegung der Muskeln fast ganz aufgehoben war." From the optical effects of applying an electrode to the eye, Arnim concluded: Wichtig für diese Zurückfiihrung der Affection durch den Galvanismus und Electricität als Wärme die im A u g e als Licht c o n s t r a i n wird; scheint es mir zu seyn, daß bei sehr heftigen galvanischen Entladungen, durch viel näher verbundene Theile doch im A u g e Licht erscheint. Es dringt darauf, den organischen Theil in seiner galvanischen Einwirkung nie als ein Abgesondertes zu betrachten.

The "Dritter Brief... Untersuchungen über die Leiter" returns to the concern with organic rather than metallic conductors. Assuming that electricity may be conducted in a manner similar to the refraction of light, Arnim recognizes a need to determine "welchen Brechungsgesetzen sie in den Körpern verschiedener Art unterworfen ist." He postulates with confidence: "Alle galvanische und electrische Entgegensetzung hebt sich entweder in Lichtentwicklung auf, oder sie zersetzt Stoffe, bei deren Wiedervereinigung Licht erscheint." The perception of color, whether stimulated by an electrical separation similar to the

Lichtprozesse, strahlende Wärme und strahlendes Licht, + L und — L, nicht zur Neutralität des farbenlosen Lichts gelangen. Allgemein muß folglich das Gesetz seyn, daß alle electrische Entgegensetzung sich nur in Lichtentwicklung aufhebt, oder die Körper, durch die sie wirkt, zersetzt, indem sie dieselben zur electrischen oder zur Lichtentwicklung fähig macht, sie desoxydirt, und nur durch sie wirkt und von ihnen geleitet wird, weil sie dessen fähig, also oxygenhaltig sind."

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opposition described in the "Electrische Versuche," by response to the varying pressure of atmospheric refraction, or by phosphorescence in the retina, must involve, Arnim was certain, a "Wärme-Capacitätsänderung." Arnim's color theory, then, depended on a galvanic account of "Wirkung und Gegenwirkung." He no doubt recognized similarities in the analogical method of Goethe. Goethe himself, in recollecting his "Naturwissenschaftlicher Entwicklungsgang," lists in the sequence beginning with "Galvanismus," these significant stages: Glaube an die Verwandtschaft magnetischer und elektrischer Phänomene. Blitz der ein Packet Nähnadeln magnetisch gemacht hat. Achim von Arnims Bemühungen.'2

The experiments Goethe performed with Ritter in 1801, such as those reported in "Von der chemischen Aktion des Lichts und der farbigen Beleuchtung."'3 did not rouse Goethe to consider "the chemische Aktion des Auges." Nevertheless, the polarities which Goethe noted in the dioptric colors, and their inversion in after-images, must have impressed Arnim as relevant to his own effort to explain "die Erscheinungen nach meiner Art." When Arnim sent Goethe a glass plate which exhibited the dioptric contrast, Goethe endeavored once more to explain "das Geheimnisvolle" in his "Lehre vom Trüben": ich besitze jedoch eine solche Scheibe, durch die Gunst des Herrn Achim von Arnim, w o gewisse Räume beim durchscheinenden Licht, der Absicht des Malers gemäß, ein reines Gelb, in der entgegengesetzten Lage ein schönes Violett zur Freude des Physikers hervorbringen.54

For Arnim, Goethe's dioptric colors could be explained in the same terms as the inversion of polarity: the plate appeared yellow when the light came toward the eye, violet when it passed away from the eye, because more heat accompanied the direct, less heat the refracted light; the after-image, of course, resulted from the chemical reversal: the yellow image became violet, the violet yellow. A literary application of this scheme Arnim provides in "Traugott's erste Erinnerung," where Traugott's participation in both worlds, moral and divine, is revealed through the "Farbenwechsel" of his perception: "Nachher habe er nichts

92 53

94

WA II, Bd. 11, 301-302. WA II, Bd. 4, 326-340; Goethe's Tagebuch lists frequent visits of Ritter between 23 February and 3 April 1801, WA III, Bd.3, 7-11. See also Wetzels, p.34, 121-124; Carl von Klinkowstroem, "Goethe und Ritter," Jahrbuch der Goethe-Gesellschaft VIII (1921), 135-151. WA II, Bd. 5, 347.

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vor seinen Augen gesehen, als eine feste grüne Wolke im roten Felde, dann sei die Wolke rot und das Feld grün geworden."95 Arnim's reasoning about color perception is not that of Thomas Young, whom he had cited in his "Beobachtungen über scheinbare Verdoppelungen." In this essay Arnim repeated the experiments of Janin with colored glasses. Several questions occur: with blue glasses do yellow objects become green, indistinguishable from other green objects, or does the eye adapt to the blue glasses and retain or regain yellow perception? does a yellow glass before one eye and a blue glass before the other produce a green stereoptic image? Young, " O n the Theory of Light and Colours" (12 November 1801), declared that three color receptors in the retina would suffice for color vision. This theory was amplified later in the century by Hermann von Helmholtz and is still referred to as the Young-Helmholtz theory." The question provoked by the colored glasses, as well as by the common forms of color blindness, continued to baffle defenders of the Young-Helmholtz theory. Arnim, in reasoning that color was produced by a galvanic or electro-chemical stimulation in the retina, provided a significant antecedent to the second major theory of color perception, the theory forwarded by Ewald Hering, Zur Lehre vom Lichtsinne (Vienna, 1878). Hering distinguishes three different components of the optic substance which he designates as the black-white perceiving, the blue-yellow perceiving, and the red-green perceiving. Three-quarters of a century after Arnim, Hering was unable to account for the rapid, virtually indefatigable interchange of color in perception.97 Although Arnim himself had confronted the problem of neutralization, he concluded that light and color vision must depend either on the electrochemical or on the heat sensitivity of the nerve fibres. When Arnim comes to the important conclusion of his galvanic theory, that "was dem übrigen Körper Gegensatz der WärmeCapacitäts-Aenderung ist, wird im Auge Licht," he can scarcely conceal his enthusiasm. The sober deliberation of his style lapses, for once, into rhapsody: "Die verschiednen Welten, in welche durch die Sinne alle Erfahrung sich trennt, in eine Erscheinung zusammenstürzen zu sehen, ist fast zu wunderbar." When Arnim turned from science to literature, this wonderful galvanic power in perception continued to inform structure and character as well as description. In "Erzählungen von Schauspielen," written for Friedrich Schlegel's Europa (1803; II, 140-192), '5 Sämtliche Romane und Erzählungen, I, 202. % O.J. Grüsser and U. Grüsser-Corehls, "Physiologie des Sehens," Grundriß der Sinnesphysiologie (Berlin Heidelberg New York: Springer-Verlag, 1980), p. 178. 97 Grüsser and Grüsser-Corehls, p. 178-179 and 197.

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Arnim revels with delight in anticipating the polemic assault of a " galvanic " literature : Erzähler: Europa ist also in diesem Zeiträume weder tragisch noch komisch, und ein kühner Dichter, der diesen Geist aufzufassen vermöchte und sich von allen Schlingen des bisherigen Theaterwesens losmachte, würde weder Lachen noch Weinen, sondern unmittelbar Nervenzuckung hervorbringen. Die Gesunde: Also ganz im Geiste des Galvanismus wirken. Erzähler: Richtig. Und nur dadurch wäre der Geist der Zeit zu bekämpfen, das allgemeine Nervenübel der Völker zu heilen.'8

This statement might be considered programmatic for much of Arnim's literary enterprise. Again and again, the polarities of "Scherz und Ernst," the "dreyfache Verbindung" create galvanic tensions in his tales. Such is the character constellation Arnim provides when Isabella peers into the "Guckkasten" and the Golem Bella is formed out of her reflected image, thoughts as well as features, and Prinz Karl becomes ensnared in their polar opposition. Such, again, when Graf Saintree is trapped in the magnetic field between Melück und Mathilda." The relation of Raphael to Benedetta and Ghita, or Graf Karl to Dolores and Klelia, involves further variation on the triadic chemistry of "Wahlverwandschaften." In addition, Arnim employs specifically galvanic structures, as in the moral exemplum introduced as a critique on the Herzogin's misdirected love for Graf Karl. On his mission to summon the Herzogin back to her duties, her Minister pauses in Alessandro Volta's native Como, "dem Geburtsort der neueren elektrischen Physik," to relate his tragicomedy of "Hylas," set at the "Ausgang eines bedeckten Säulenganges." Here Arnim describes love through the dynamics of galvanism, the hylozoism of "Volta's Säule": the aging princess of the north loves the beautiful youth of the warm south; she is prepared to abandon her realm for him, but he receives in dream the message of her sacrifice and leaps to his death in light: Bald wird es Tag von einem neuen Licht Und werd ich Licht, wenn ich dem Meer einsteige, So fall ich hier in ihre holden Augen.100

98

99

100

"Erzählungen von Schauspielen," in Friedrich Schlegel's Europa II (1803), 163-164; reprographischer Nachdruck, ed. Ernst Behler (Stuttgart, 1963). Cf. Gustav Beckers, "Phänomene des 'thierischen Magnetismus' in Achim von Arnims Novella Die Majoratsherren, " Jahrbuch für Internationale Germanistik, Reihe A, Bd. 8, 4, pp.453—459; Maria M.Tatar, Spellbound, Studies on Mesmerism and Literature (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1978). Sämtliche Romane und Erzählungen, I, 456.

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In Die Ebenschmiede, when Rennwagen declares: "Ich entdeckte für die menschliche Zuneigung dasselbe Gesetz wie für die Anziehung, sie wächst im umgekehrten Verhältnisse der Quadrate der Entfernung," the narrator sarcastically quips: "Vielleicht gilt hier auch das Marriottsche Gesetz für die Zusammendruckung." Here Arnim playfully repeats the same lesson in methodology that he gave in his letter to Schelling. After having much fun at the expense of his Naturforscher and his Mechaniker, Arnim constructs a neat voltaic battery. By slightly altering the Scottish tradition of the marrying smith of Gretna Green, Arnim, in the final chapter, introduces an additional marrying smith: a gold-smith at one pole, an iron-smith at the other, and the facile and fickle Aura (daughter of a Professor at G[ó'ííingen]) who like the galvanic current manipulates the marriages but does not marry.101 By his own confession, Arnim came late to the works of Jakob Böhme, whose concept of light and polarity had become widely influential in the romantic period. Answering the question whether Böhme would be accepted as academic and scholar, Arnim recalled that by "Zufall" even a layman could overthrow an academy, just as John Dolland did in making the achromatic lens in complete ignorance that Newton had declared it impossible: "weil die Classe der Erfinder noch nicht gestiftet ist und darum ist es auch meist nur ein Zufall wie bei Flintglase."102 Arnim was especially attracted to the account of perception as "Wechselringen" in Böhme's Aurora (1634) and he makes it central to Böhme's doctrine: Mein Sohn, die Kraft ist Wechselringen, Die Mannigfalt im ew'gen Streit, Mit der Vollkommenheit Durchdringen, Die Form bald eng und bald zu weit.103

Because Böhme explains the senses as a participation in the divine chemistry of elements and powers, Arnim must have seen the parallel to his own galvanic thought. He has Böhme describe the ordering process, "die Reihen aller Wesen," as an internal and external opposition, "Nach ihrem ein'gen Gegensatz."104 The participation in sensation is the

101 102 103 104

Sämtliche Romane und Erzählungen, III, 572-585. Sämtliche Romane und Erzählungen, II, 878. Sämtliche Romane und Erzählungen, II, 355. Jakob Böhme, Theosophia Revelate, oder Alle göttliche Schriften (1739), 5 Bde, is the edition listed in the catalog of Arnim's library. For the account of the senses in Aurora see especially ch. 5, sections 35-62; and for the principle of "Wechselringen," the generative reihen and treiben, ch. 9, sections 22-39.

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threshold to participation in the divine. Thus Arnim, at the close of his poem, has Böhme bless the sexual union of Sela and Aurora. At the beginning of his satirical sequel to Wilhelm Meister, in "Wunder über Wunder," Arnim describes his "Bewunderung" of Goethe in terms of Leuchtsteine: "sollte diese Bewunderung nicht einige geistige Gemeinschaft, einen Reiz verleihen, ähnlich dem Lichte des Bologneser Leuchtstein.. ,?"105 Arnim himself had been fascinated in observing the stone, "mit Geistesglut durchflammt," at the touch of an electric impulse. The tribute to Goethe, even here in satire, draws on their common interest, for Goethe, too, describes how he excited the display of colors in "Leuchtstein... durch den Funken der Leidner Flasche,!106 When Goethe draws the parallels between Lichtenberg^ magnetic figures, Chladni's sound figures, Ritter's "Verhellen und Verdunkeln des Hornsilbers," he sees them as wonderful analogues to his own account of dioptric and entoptic phenomena.107 For Arnim, however, the relationship between the "Schwingungen" of light and sound, electricity and magnetism, could all be traced to fundamental physical laws. Arnim could admire Goethe's keen observation of optical phenomena without rejecting it for its scientific inaccuracies. In a review of Goethe's Aus meinem Leben (1822), Arnim gives his appraisal of Farbenlehre neither as "blinder Verehrer" nor as "gehässiger Gegner": Ganz ärgerlich sind aber die Physiker durch den heftigen Streit gegen Neuton, der sogar des absichtlichen Betruges in der Farbenlehre geziehen wird. Im Eifer für die Verdienste und das Genie Neutons, dem wir fast alle Fortschritte in der Optik, selbst diejenigen danken, die nicht mehr mit seiner Theorie übereinstimmen, wollen sie in der Farbenlehre gar nichts Brauchbares erkennen, sie vermissen in den Experimenten Erfindungsgabe, in der Theorie Deutlichkeit und Anregung Diesen Vorwurf einer seltsamen Dunkelheit über einfache Gegenstände möchte auch wohl das schwerste seyn, gegen welchen die Farbenlehre zu vertheidigen; er möchte jedoch ganz schwinden, wenn Goethe aufrichtig das Ahndungsreich, aber auch das ganz Schwankende, Unausgebildete seiner Anschauungen mitgetheilt hätte.1™

In spite of Goethe's pretensions about "das Geheimnisvolle," Arnim did not hesitate to borrow from the prismatic experiments of the Farbenlehre. Thus, for example, he plays with Goethe's dioptric "Haupt- und Nebenbilder" in the "Metamorphose der Gesellschaft," when the

105 106 107

108

Sämtliche Romane und Erzählungen, III, 437. W A II, Bd. 4, 327-328. W A II, Bd. 4, 326-340; Bd. 5, 295-296. See: "Schreiben des Geh. Rath von Göthe an J. W. Ritter, Herschel's thermometrische Versuche in den Farben des Lichts betreffend; mit Anmerkungen von J . W . Ritter," in Gehlen's Journal für die Chemie, Physik und Mineralogie 1808; VI, 719-728. Literatur-Blatt Nr. 66 (16 August 1822), pp. 262-263.

Achim von Arnim : The Galvanic Eye

175

Swedenborgian Adept looks upon the Rittmeister and Miranda through a prism: "und berichtete von einer Lichtbrechung, und daß wir beide ein Strahl aus hoher Sonne wären, der von der Erde in Farben gebrochen."109 "Farben sind Taten des Lichtes," said Goethe, "Taten und Leiden." Arnim could easily endorse such an account of the "Wirkung und Gegenwirkung des Lichtes," but he could not accept Goethe's insistence on "trübe Mittel." For Arnim, "das Geheimnisvolle" was in the electric impulse of the nerves, the galvanic action of the eye.

109

Sämtliche Romane und Erzählungen, III, 293.

VI. Wordsworth: An Auxiliar Light Why The Recluse was never completed, and how Wordsworth must have agonized over the awesome task, should be obvious to anyone who reviews the expansive plan to synthesize poetry and science, history and philosophy, the progress of man and society. Coleridge, of course, was responsible for imposing this scheme on his friend, and he was jubilant when Wordsworth "at length yielded to my urgent & repeated - almost unremitting - requests & remonstrances - & will go on with the Recluse exclusively" (To Thomas Poole, 14 Oct. 1803).1 The design and, for a time, the inspiration for this grand project came largeley from Coleridge. As Coleridge recollected years later in the Table Talk (21 July 1832), Wordsworth would base his "system of philosophy" on the act of perception: He was to treat man as man, - a subject of eye, ear, touch, and taste, in contact with external nature, and informing the senses from the mind, and not compounding a mind out of the senses.

Although Coleridge goes on to declare that The Recluse was to present, as well, the "degeneracy" and the "redemptive process" at work in the history of civilization and in the individual experience, he indicated that Wordsworth would demonstrate the conditions for the rise or the fall as grounded in the capacity of the mind to inform perception.2 When Wordsworth, after years of labor, brought out The Excursion (1814), intended along with The Prelude as a major contribution to the tripart structure of The Recluse, he was both disappointed and baffled by Coleridge's cool reception. After admitting that he had "been perplexed . . . by your comparative censure," Wordsworth pleaded Coleridge to "point out to me the most striking instances where I have failed" (22 May 1815).3 In his reply, Coleridge harkened back to his own conception of the original plan: 1

2

3

Collected Letters of Samuel Taylor Coleridge, ed. Earl Leslie Griggs, 6 vols. (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1956-1971), II, 1013. Speämens of the Table Talk of the Late Samuel Taylor Coleridge, ed. Η. Ν. Coleridge, 2 vols. (London, 1835-1836), II, 70-71. The Letters of William and Dorothy Wordsworth, The Middle Years, Part Two, ed. Ernest de Selincourt, rev. Mary Moorman and Alan G. Hill (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1970), 238.

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I supposed you first to have meditated the faculties of Man in the abstract, in their correspondence with his Sphere of action, and first, in the Feeling, Touch, and Taste, then in the Eye, & last in the Ear, to have laid a solid and immovable foundation for the Edifice by removing the sandy Sophisms of Locke, and the Mechanic Dogmatists, and demonstrating that the Senses were living growths and developments of the Mind & Spirit in a much juster as well as higher sense, than the mind can be said to be formed by the Senses - . 4

Wordsworth's own statement of the plan, in the Prospectus to The Recluse which was published with The Excursion,5 seems to agree with Coleridge's conception. The poet's meditations "On Man, on Nature, and on Human Life" are to be included; his method is to be introspective: N o t Chaos, not The darkest pit of lowest Erebus, N o r aught of blinder vacancy, scooped out By help of dreams - can breed such fear and awe As fall upon us often when we look Into our Minds, into the Mind of Man My haunt, and the main region of my song.

(11.35-41)

Wordworth's admission of fear in the introspective confrontation with his own mind may well provide a clue to his difficulty with the plan. He remains in accord with Coleridge, however, in adding that he will proclaim: H o w exquisitely the individual Mind (And the progressive powers perhaps no less Of the whole species) to the external World Is fitted: - and how exquisitely, too Theme this but little heard of among men The external World is fitted to the Mind.

(11. 63-68)

While the senses serve their mediating function between mind and nature, the mind retains primacy. Not only the senses but all phenomena of nature are informed by the mind. Here Wordsworth clearly endorses that same philosophical position that prompted Coleridge to his repudiation of Newton: his whole theory is, I am persuaded, so exceedingly superficial as without impropriety to be deemed false. Newton was a mere materialist. Mind, in his system, is always passive, - a lazy Looker-on on an external world. If the mind be not passive, if it be

4

5

Coleridge, Letters, IV, 570-576. The "comparative censure," which had disturbed Wordsworth, was contained in Coleridge's letter to Lady Beaumont (3 April 1815), IV, 564-565. The Poetical Works of William Wordsworth, ed. Ernest de Selincourt and Helen Darbishire, 5 vols. (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1940-1949), V, 3-4.

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indeed made in God's Image, & that, too, in the sublimest sense, the Image of the Creator, there is ground for suspicion that any system built on the passiveness of the mind must be false, as a system (To Thomas Pool, 23 March 1801).'

To his lofty exposition of the active and formative mind Wordsworth intended to add more "lowly matter": the poet's own "transitory Being that beheld/This Vision." Even this "lowly matter," however, would conform to the overall plan and philosophical system, for through his autobiographical presence Wordsworth could "with the thing / Contemplated describe the Mind and Man/Contemplating" (11. 94-96). Since Coleridge himself had expressly stipulated "that Wordsworth should assume the station of a man in mental repose, one whose principles were made up, and so prepared to deliver upon authority a system of philosophy," Coleridge, then, certainly saw The Recluse as narrated from a strong autobiographical perspective.7 Wordsworth's departure from the plan is in the tenacity with which he holds to the autobiographical presence and the moment of experience. In the Prospectus, he anticipates writing a survey of human history: if I oft Must turn elsewhere - to travel near the tribes And fellowships of men, and see ill sights Of madding passions, mutually inflamed, Must hear Humanity in fields and groves Pipe solitary anguish, or must hang Brooding above the fierce confederate storm Of sorrow, barricadoed evermore Within walls of Cities - may these sounds Have their authentic comment, that even these Hearing, I be not downcast or forlorn!

6

7

(11. 72-82).

Coleridge, Letters, II, 709. Coleridge later regretted this denunciation of N e w t o n ; he wrote to Pool (14 October 1803) begging him to destroy "that Letter which in the ebulliency of indistinct Conceptions I wrote to you respecting Sir Isaac Newton's Optics - & which to my Horror and Shame I saw that Ward had transcribed - a Letter which if I were to die & it should ever see the Light would damn me forever as a man mad with Presumption." Coleridge, Table Talk, II, 70; in his critique to Wordsworth on The Excursion he affirms the continuation of the autobiographical stategy of The Prelude: "the Poem on the growth of your own mind was as the ground-plant and the Roots, out of which the Recluse was to have sprung up as the Tree"; he also acknowledges "Home at Grasmere" as the suitable opening: " T h e Recluse I had (from what I had at different times gathered from your conversation on the Plan) anticipated as commencing with you set down and settled in an abiding Home, and that with the Description of that Home you were to begin a Philosophical Poem" (30 May 1815), Letters, IV, 573-574.

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Precisely this part of the endeavor must have weighed most heavily on Wordsworth in attempting to draft The Recluse. Coleridge expected the history to be vast and grand: Fallen man contemplated in different ages of the World, and in the different statesSavage-Barbarous-Civilized-the lonely Cot, or Borderer's Wigwam-the Village-The Manufacturing Town-Sea-port-City-Universities-and not disguising the sore evils, under which the whole Creation groans, to point out however a manifest Scheme of Redemption from this Slavery, of Reconciliation from this Enmity with Nature . . . and to conclude by a grand didactic swell on the identity of a true Philosophy with a true Religion (30 May 1815).'

If this is what he expected to find in The Excursion, then Coleridge must have considered his "comparative censure" justified. The historical survey of The Excursion is tightly constrained within the dialogue of the Solitary and the Wanderer, intense and intimately felt, but not vast and grand. Nor could the homely discourse of the Vicar, which concludes with "apprehensions that he might have detained his Auditors too long," be deemed "a grand didactic swell" reconciling philosophy and religion. Nevertheless, The Excursion was clearly a part of Wordsworth's conscientious endeavor to meet Coleridge's expectations. The rustic tales of the Wanderer and the Vicar, even if not delivered "upon authority," provide a modest fulfillment of the plan. The Prospectus, reaffirming that plan, Wordsworth borrowed from the first book, "Home at Grasmere," the only book of The Recluse which he had been able to complete. Even in "Home at Grasmere" he holds to the familiar autobiographical presence until he arrives at the grand bardic moment: "A Voice shall speak, and what shall be the Theme?" The answer, the conclusion to "Home at Grasmere," formed the Prospectus to The Recluse. Wordsworth was not the poet to set sail "on an open Ocean" of history and philosophy. Rather, he was wary of abstraction and candidly confessed his "fear and awe" at peering too long, too deeply into the pit of the mind. In the Fenwick note to the Immortality Ode, Wordsworth acknowledged that even as a child he felt a danger in the seduction of idealism and "grasped at a wall or a tree to recall myself from this abyss of idealism to the reality."' The lines borrowed for the Prospectus were first composed sometime between Spring, 1800, and Spring, 1802.10 During this period Words8 Coleridge, Letters, IV, 574-575. ' Wordsworth, Poetical Works (Isabella Fenwick's note), IV, 463. 10 Mark L. Reed, Wordsworth: The Chronology of the Middle Years, 1800-18D (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1975), pp. 663-665. See also Beth Darlington's Introduction to her edition of Wordsworth's Home at Grasmere (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1977), pp. 20-22.

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w o r t h w a s w o r k i n g , f o r c e d and fitfully, at The Recluse,

still waiting t o

receive f r o m C o l e r i d g e the n o t e s t o guide h i m . " I n assembling his o w n material f o r creating the g r a n d synthesis, W o r d s w o r t h f o u n d an exciting d i r e c t i o n o p e n e d t o h i m u p o n attending H u m p h r y D a v y ' s lectures o n c h e m i s t r y a n d galvanic p h e n o m e n a in J a n u a r y , 1 8 0 2 . D a v y

delivered

t w o c o u r s e s o f lectures at the R o y a l I n s t i t u t i o n in M a n c h e s t e r : m o r n i n g s o n " G e n e r a l C h e m i s t r y , " evenings o n " T h e C o n n e x i o n o f C h e m i s t r y w i t h the A r t s . " T h e s e c o n d lecture o f t h e evening series included an a c c o u n t o f galvanic c h e m i s t r y and p h y s i o l o g y and a d e m o n s t r a t i o n o f the V o l t a i c pile. 1 2 W o r d s w o r t h c a m e a w a y so p r o f o u n d l y i m p r e s s e d t h a t h e d e c l a r e d it the p o e t ' s d u t y t o translate the t r u t h o f science i n t o intimate h u m a n expression: The remotest discoveries of the Chemist, the Botanist, or Mineralogist, will be as proper objects of the Poet's art as any upon which it can be employed, if the time should ever come when these things shall be familiar to us, and the relations under which they are contemplated by the followers of these respective sciences shall be manifestly and palpably material to us as enjoying and suffering beings. If the time should ever come when what is now called science, thus familiarised to men, shall be ready to put on, as it were, a form of flesh and blood, the Poet will lend his divine spirit to aid the transfiguration, and will welcome the Being thus produced, as a dear and genuine inmate of the household of man.13 W o r d s w o r t h ' s e n t h u s i a s m f o r the h u m a n i z a t i o n o f science w a s p r o m p t e d b y D a v y ' s d e m o n s t r a t i o n that electricity c o u l d c o m b i n e and divide, t h r o u g h electrolysis, c h e m i c a l substances in w a t e r , that b o t h plants and

11

12

13

Thomas McFarland, Romanticism and the Forms of Ruin (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1981), pp. 96-100, documents the "Plan" and the ever-elusive "Notes" to The Recluse as the perversion of symbiosis, "perhaps the best example of Coleridge's counterinfluence on Wordsworth." J . A. Paris, The Life of Sir Humphry Davy, 2 vols. (London: Colburn and Bentley, 1835), I, 87-89, 94—95. For a discussion of Wordsworth's response to Davy's lectures, see Roger Sharrock, "The Chemist and the Poet: Sir Humphry Davy and the Preface to Lyrical BalladsNotes and Records of the Royal Society of London, XVII (1962), 57-76, and Sharrock, "Wordsworth on Science and Poetry," REL, III, no. 4 (1962), 42-50. For Coleridge's response to the same lectures, see The Notebooks of Samuel Taylor Coleridge, ed. Kathleen Coburn, 3 vols. (Princeton, N . J . : Princeton University Press, 1957), I, 1098 and 1098n. The Prose Works of William Wordsworth, ed. W . J . Β Owen and Jane W. Smyser, 3 vols. (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1974), I, 112, 135, 140-141, 174, 180-181. In addition to discussing "Wordsworth's reaction to the claims of Humphry Davy on behalf of science, and in particular to Davy's introductory lecture given at the Royal Institution on 21 January 1802," the editors also provide commentary on Wordsworth's attention to poetry and science in "The Convention of Cintra" (1809), I, 324-325, 401; in "Essay, Supplementary to the Preface" (1815), III, 63, 85; and in "Kendal and Windermere Railway" (1844), III, 347.

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181

animals responded to electric stimuli, that the growth of crystals was an electric occurrence, that even human sensory response was influenced by electricity. The "remotest discoveries of the Chemist, the Botanist, or Mineralogist" must have seemed to Wordsworth no longer distant from the threshold into the mystery of life. When asked why he was attending these same lectures in 1802, Coleridge candidly replied that he listened to Davy in order "to renew my stock of metaphors."14 Upon reading Davy's Galvanic Habitudes of Charcoal, he professed "there is not a Letter in those words, round which a world of imagery does not circumvolve."15 Coleridge never managed, however, to aid Wordsworth in adapting this "world of imagery" to the purposes of The Recluse. He was, of course, instrumental in introducing Davy and Wordsworth. Coleridge and Southey met Davy shortly after he began as assistant to Dr. Thomas Beddoes at the Pneumatic Institute. Southey published several of Davy's poems in his Annual Anthology for 1799 and 1800. "Every subject in Davy's mind," Coleridge exclaimed, "has the principle of vitality."16 Both Southey and Coleridge took part in the first experiments with nitrous oxide, and both contributed their ecstatic accounts of mental excitation and heightened perceptions to Davy's report on the nature and effects of the gas.17 Following Coleridge's suggestion, Wordsworth agreed to enlist Davy's help in preparing the manuscripts and proofs for the second edition, in 1800, of the Lyrical Ballads." Shortly after Wordsworth had received the legacy bequeathed by Raisley Calvert, William Calvert invited Wordsworth and Coleridge to join him at Windy Brow to study chemistry. Coleridge then wrote to Davy (3 Feb. 1801) requesting his guidance in their study of chemistry and galvanism, specifically which books they should read and what laboratory apparatus they would require. That Coleridge relied more on 14 15

16

17

18

Paris, I, 92. Coleridge, Letters, I, 630; John Davy, ed., Collected Works of Sir Hymphry Davy, 9 vols. (London: Murray, 1839), II, 201, 208, 323. Joseph Cottle, Early Recollections chiefly relating to the Late Samuel Taylor Coleridge (London: Longman, Rees & Co., 1837). Davy, Researches Chemical and Philosophical chiefly concerning Nitrous Oxide (Bristol: J.Johnson, 1800). For a thorough account of Coleridge's attention to Davy's research, see Trevore H. Levere, Poetry Realized in Nature, Samuel Taylor Coleridge and Early Nineteenth-Century Science (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1981), pp. 20-31, 171-198. Coleridge, Letters, I, 611-612 (to Davy, 25 July 1800); Wordsworth, The Letters of William and Dorothy Wordsworth, The Early Years 1787-1805, ed. Ernest de Selincourt, rev. Chester L. Shaver (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1967), p. 289-290 (to Davy, 29 July 1800).

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the books than on the laboratory, is evident in his progress report three months later: I learn that you are giving lectures on Galvanism. Would to God! I were one of your auditors. - My motive muscles tinged and contracted at the news, as if you had bared them & were zincifying the life-mocking Fibres As far as words go, I have become a formidable chemist - having got by heart a prodigious quantity of terms & to which I attach some ideas That which most discourages me in it is that I find all power & vital attributes to depend on modes of arrangement and that chemistry throws not even a distant rush-light glimmer upon this subject I grow however exceedingly interested in the subject (4 May 1801)."

Nothing in the enthusiasm of this letter to Davy would betray the awful debilitation that he had been suffering. William and Dorothy had just been with him for a full week (20-27 April 1801) and had found him "dreadfully pale and weak." Whatever his "formidable" mastery over the "terms" and "ideas" of chemistry, Coleridge had no hand in building a laboratory at Windy Brow and conducted no experiments other than with the medicinal potions for his "irregular gout."20 Wordsworth, for his part, made little progress during this period at bringing even the "words" of chemistry and galvanism into the realm of poetry. When Davy stayed with Wordsworth in August, 1805, The Recluse was the work-in-progress that the poet, no doubt hoping for advice in furthering the grand plan, chose to share with the scientist.21 Although I am eager to agree with Geoffrey Durrant "that Wordsworth was less hostile to physical science than criticism has generally supposed, and that his poetic vision is deeply influenced by his scientific interests and his mathematical habits of mind," I cannot accept his appraisal of Wordsworth's poetic task as "making the 'great system' of Newton intelligible to the imagination of men." If Wordsworth had been content to show "How exquisitely the individual Mind / . . . to the external World/Is fitted," then, perhaps, Locke's account of primary and secondary qualities would serve to explain the fit; however, when Wordsworth adds his "Theme... but little heard of," how "The external World is fitted to the Mind," he departs radically from the Newtonian and Lockian model of perception. Wordsworth accepted as his own "system of philosophy" a plan for The Recluse which would remove "the sandy Sophisms of Locke, and the Mechanic Dogmatists," and

19 20

21

Coleridge, Letters, II, 670-672, 726-727. Wordsworth, Letters, Early Years, pp. 329-330 (D. W. and W. W. to Mary Hutchinson, 29 April 1801). Wordsworth, Letters, Early Years, pp.615, 634 ( D . W . to Lady Beaumont, 7 August 1805, 27 October 1805).

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183

oppose Newton's conception of the mind as "a lazy Looker-on." Durrant considers Wordsworth, nevertheless, "firmly rooted in the Newtonian synthesis."22 If Wordsworth was "following in the footsteps of the man of science," then he would not, as Durrant claims, have been able to espouse Newton's Principia Mathematica (1692) and Opticks (1704) as doctrines intact and unmodified after a century of scientific progress. Indeed, when Wordsworth in 1802 added to his Preface to Lyrical Ballads this account of the poet accompanying the "Man of Science," it was in his enthusiasm not for Newton, but for the accomplishments of Humphry Davy. Newtonian science persisted, of course, well into the nineteenth century, straining to adapt or adopt newly emerging evidence. The physics Wordsworth studied (1787-1791) at St. John's College, Cambridge, were strongly Newtonian. Wordsworth chose not to take the examination in 1789, when Newton's Opticks and Bishop Butler's Analogy of Religion, Natural and Revealed, to the Constitution and Course of Nature (1736) were the assigned texts;23 however, he apparently did pursue both the readings and the lectures, including those exercises offered by James Wood which were later published as the Principles of Mechanics (1796), The Elements of Perspective (1797), and The Elements of Optics (1799). James Wood, it should be remembered, was Wordsworth's College Tutor.24 The very year Wordsworth entered St. John's, James Wood delivered his paper "On Halos," in which he opposes Huygens and Descartes, and finds Newton in error not in

22

Geoffrey Durrant, Wordsworth and the Great System (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1970), pp. 17-18, opposes the claim of E. D. Hirsch, Wordsworth and Schelling, A Typological Study of Romanticism (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1960), "that Wordsworth and Schelling developed independently an identical Weltanschauung." Ignoring the fundamental proposition of subject-object reciprocity, Durrant states : "There is no need to resort to the hypothesis of a mysterious Verwandtschaft of this kind. The sources of Wordsworth's dialetics are clear enough. They are to be found in the dialectical and antithetical structure of the verse of Pope, in the dialectics of matter and motion in the Newtonian account of Nature, and in the endless dialogue of sun and earth, of growth and decay, and in the classical poetry in which Wordsworth was educated."

23

Ben Ross Schneider, Wordsworth's Cambridge Education (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1957), pp. 156-163. Wordsworth, Letters, The Early Years, p. 427: Wordsworth confesses that he is long overdue in his debts (£10.15.3 Í4) to James Wood, and begs his brother Richard to settle the account with his College Tutor (12 Dec 1803). Wordsworth records his visit with James Wood on the occasion of his address to the College as Vice-Chancellor (11 Dec 1820). Letters, The Middle Years, Part 2, 653. See Autobiographical Recollections of George Pryme, ed. Alicia Bayne (Cambridge, 1870), p. 252.

24

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Wordsworth: An Auxiliar Light

o r d e r i n g b u t o n l y in m e a s u r i n g the halos he describes in B o o k I I o f t h e OpticksFollowing

the r e c e n t r e s e a r c h in the p h y s i o l o g y o f the e y e and

p h y s i o l o g i c a l o p t i c s b y H a r r i s and Smith, 2 6 W o o d in his Elements Optics

of

d e v o t e s a c h a p t e r " O n the E y e " :

experience alone teaches us, what situation of the external object corresponds to a particular impression upon the retina; nor is it of any consequence what that impression is, or in what manner it is made; but whenever the same effect is produced upon the organ, we expect to find the same external object, and in the situation our former experience directs us.27 T h e i m p r e s s i o n s o f the retina r e m a i n unreliable until i n f o r m e d

and

c o m p l e m e n t e d b y the o t h e r senses. T o u c h and s o u n d are n e c e s s a r y t o i n t e r p r e t i n g t h e data o f sight. W o o d is o b v i o u s l y r e s p o n d i n g t o t h e f a m o u s q u e s t i o n o f W i l l i a m M o l y n e u x , w h e t h e r a blind m a n , in the instant o f r e c o v e r i n g his sight, w o u l d be able t o distinguish a c u b e f r o m a sphere b y sight, w i t h o u t t o u c h i n g t h e m . 2 8 In his Elements,

W o o d also

refutes t h e o b j e c t i o n s t o t h e " c o r p u s c u l a r " t h e o r y raised b y the a d h e r ents o f the w a v e t h e o r y ; W o o d elaborates N e w t o n ' s a c c o u n t o f " f i t s " in t h e reflection and r e f r a c t i o n o f light, b u t he c o n c e d e s t h a t the light o f electricity, a p p a r e n t l y b e c a u s e it is subject t o laws o f a t t r a c t i o n and r e p u l s i o n differing f r o m t h o s e t h a t g o v e r n light, d o e s n o t c o n f o r m t o the principles o f o p t i c s . 2 ' T h e e x c e p t i o n here, as well as W o o d ' s p o s i t i o n o n the M o l y n e u x q u e s t i o n , c o n t i n u e d t o disturb W o r d s w o r t h ' s thinking o n p e r c e p t i o n . W h e t h e r he learned it f r o m W o o d , o r later f r o m H u m p h r y

25

26

27

28

29

James Wood, "On Halos" (read 12 October 1787), Memoirs of the Literary and Philosophical Society of Manchester, III (1790), 336-343. Joseph Harris, A Treatise of Optics, 2 vols. (London, 1775); Robert Smith, A Complete System of Optics, 2 vols. (Cambridge, 1782). James Wood, The Elements of Optics (Cambridge: J.Burges, 1799 ; 2nd ed., 1801), pp. 127-128. Wood presents this argument first in arguing that experience teaches us to adjust the inverted images received on the retina, and again in maintaining that through "habit" we learn to resolve the images from the two eyes into single vision. He does, however, entertain the possibility that the resolution might be accomplished organically and intuitively, "by the familiarity of corresponding parts of the optic nerve, and their union within the brain [vide Newton, Opticks, Part III, Query 15]," pp. 139-140. Wood admits to similar difficulties in accounting for color perception in his chapter "On the Nature of Light and Colours," in Elements of Perspective (Edinburgh, 1797). John Locke, Essay Concerning Human Understanding, ed. A. S. Pringle-Pattison (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1924), pp. 74-76 (Book II, Ch. IX, sec. 8). The letter quoted by Locke from Molyneux was dated 2 March 1693. Molyneux had developed this question in Dioptrica Nova (1692). See also A New Theory of Vision (1709), sec. 41, in The Works of George Berkeley, D. D., ed. Alexander Fraser, 4 vols. (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1871), I, 52. Wood, Elements of Optics, p. 12.

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Davy, Wordsworth was aware that the evidence of electrical phenomena related to light was undermining the confidence in the Newtonian system. Coleridge was jesting, in part, when he wrote about his optical experiments to William Godwin: I look at the Mountains only for the Curves of their outlines; the Stars, as I behold them, form themselves into Triangles - and my hands are scarred with scratches from a Cat, whose back I was rubbing in the Dark to see whether the sparks from it were refrangible by a Prism (25 March 1801). 30

Even in jest, however, we recognize an awareness of what Wood had seen as an exception to the Newtonian theory. Wordsworth's theory of perception may be indebted to Coleridge's urging that The Recluse should be an "Edifice" constructed on the ruins of "the Mechanic Dogmatists." Whatever the debt, Wordsworth did not accumulate his ideas on perception eclectically, rather he fully absorbed a theory of perception into his own distinctive poetic. His theory of perception relies on three frequently reiterated premises concerning the immanence, mediation, and organic synthesis of light: (1) A vital power is manifest in light. (2) Sight engages and mediates that vital power. (3) Perception involves an organic synthesis of mind and nature.

Wordsworth would have had no difficulty in endorsing Goethe's notion of the eye as "Sonnenhaft," or sight as "erschaffen." 31 Although Coleridge shared with Wordsworth many of the ideas he had acquired from Germany, the Beiträge zur Optik (1790-92) were apparently not among them, and the Farbenlehre (1810) appeared too late to have had a formative influence on the planning of The Recluse. Wordsworth's attention to the physiological mediation of light, however, is compatible with the dialectic of Goethe's "Taten und Leiden des Lichtes." The "dialectics of matter and motion in the Newtonian account of Nature," in spite of Geoffrey Durrant's arguments,32 remain quite unlike the dialectics of subject and object in Wordsworth's perception theory, and Wordsworth's "vital power" is no mere "ghost in the machine" of the Newtonian system. Beginning The Prelude with the "vital breeze" that becomes "a redundant energy / Vexing its own creation," Wordsworth proceeds to the inventory of his poetic assets, counting as the "first great gift, the

30 31

32

Coleridge, Letters, II, 714. "Wär' nicht das Auge sonnenhaft" (1 Sept. 1805), in Rupprecht Matthaei, Farbenlehre (Ravensburg: Otto Maier Verlag, 1971), pp. 71-73. Durrant, pp. 17-18.

Goethes

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vital soul," supported by "Under-powers... of the living mind" and informed by "external things;/Forms, images" (I, 41—47; 157-168)." In the conclusion he gives tribute to the imagination jointly with the coupling power of "intellectual Love" as "the prime and vital principle." When Wordsworth renders praise to the "vital power," he places it in the threshold of perception. Even in the exuberance of his stunning apostrophes to the daimonia of nature, Wordsworth does not omit the mediating contingency. He does not evoke "Wisdom and Spirit of the Universe!" without the responsive presence in "Thou Soul that art the eternity of thought/That giv'st to forms and images a breath/And everlasting motion." This Newtonian dialectic of matter and motion is not simply interpreted by the analytic or synthetic reasoning; rather, it is recreated in the manner of the "correspondent breeze" transformed into a "redundant energy." Thus does the impelling "Soul... of thought," Wordsworth explains, "intertwine for me/The passions that build up our human soul" (I, 428—434). This apostrophe, which introduces the ice-skating episode, is followed by a yet grander apostrophe: Y e Presences of Nature, in the sky Or on the earth! Ye Visions of the hills! And Souls of lonely places! can I think A vulgar hope was yours when Ye employed Such ministry, when Ye through many a year. Haunting me thus among my boyish sports, On caves and trees, upon woods and hills, Impress'd upon all forms the characters Of danger or desire; and thus did make The surface of the universal earth With triumph and delight, and hope, and fear, Work like the sea?

(1,490-501)

So compelling is the natural supernaturalism of the haunting metaphor, that it is easy to neglect the metaphorical complexity of nature as gravity's palimpsest. What is "impressed upon all forms" as hieroglyphic "characters / Of danger or desire" has its meaning only in the perceptive act of reading and responding.34 In explaining this act of perception, 33

34

Except where noted in the text, all quotations from The Prelude are from the text of 1805, ed. Ernest de Selincourt, rev. Helen Darbishire (London: Oxford University Press, 1960); I also use their dating and designation for notebooks, drafts, and corrections. Wordsworth's vocabulary for the perception of "external things;/Forms, images" (Prelude, I 165-166) and the act of impressing forms, images, and types is documented in notes 57 and 58 below; for Wordsworth on surface, see note 51. For a general study of the lyric function of such strategies of meaning, see Daniel Stempel, "Wordsworth and the Phenomenology of Textual Constitution," Philosophy and Literature V, no. 2 (Fall 1981), 150-175.

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Wordsworth compounds the language metaphor of "impressed... characters" with the gravity metaphor of a tidal ebb and flow makes the very "surface of t h e . . . earth" subject to the flux of the passions which "Work like the sea." Through his own responsive consciousness derives the ministerial spell of "Presences" conjured from earth and sky, "Visions" charmed from hills, "Souls" raised in solitude. The "Haunting" cannot be simplistically reduced to "pathetic fallacy": efferent nature works upon afferent mind; but the converse is equally true. Many of the optical splendors require of the poet no departure from the Newtonian scheme; thus, for example, he describes prismatic refraction in Descriptive Sketches (1793): "cloudless suns no more ye frostbuilt fires / Refract in rainbow hues the restless spires" (11. 390-391). In a late poem, The Triad (1828), he evokes the idea of waves of light stirring the dance of nature's three graces, cloud and wind and twilight, when the rainbow arches from a "cloudy shrine" and the invisible wind is perceived as a Euphrosyne dancing in the rhythmic light glowing through the green: "Air sparkles round her with a dazzling sheen." In the Thanksgiving Ode (1816) his supplication for the "sovereign penetration" of divine energy anticipates a wave of "moving spirit" : Breathe, Thou, this day, a vital undulation! Let all who do this land inherit Be conscious of thy moving spirit! Oh, 'tis a goodly Ordinance, - the sight, Though sprung from bleeding war, is one of pure delight.

(11.191-195)

Wordsworth informs this "dramatised ejaculation"35 on the victory at Waterloo with the pervasive impulse of "a vital undulation," yet he also cautions that those who exult only in the moment of martial strength have "missed the sole true glory." Although "bad proceeded propagating worse," the "vital undulation," the essentially benevolent propagation of energy throughout nature, may again, with the restored peace, be engaged by alert human perception. Wordsworth views nationalism in this poem much as he views nature in so many other poems: the perception provides a sense of reciprocity between the beholder and what he beholds.36 The "vital undulation" pervading nature also animates perception.

35

36

Wordsworth, Letters, The Middle Years, Part 2, to Robert Southey, June 1816, pp. 324-325. For example, his "sense sublime" of "A motion and a spirit, that impels/All thinking things, all objects of all thought. / And rolls through all things," and his consequent love "of all the mighty w o r l d / O f eye and ear, - both what they half create,/And what perceive," Tintern Abbey, 11. 93-107.

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The turn in contemporary science from matter to energy as the medium of light effectively distanced the beholding eye from material participation in "external things." With the necessary function of the mind to shape and order the stimuli of the retina, optical illusions gained a paradoxical legitimacy.37 For Wordsworth, optical illusions have poetic moment in revealing how the mind is tutored by the very fluidity and tactibility of the objects of perception. This is why illusion lurks with that "efficacious spirit" in the "spots of time" by which "our minds / Are nourished and invisibly repaired" {Prelude, XI, 264-265): stealing a boat only to have an entire mountain rise up in condemnation, trying "To cut across the reflex of a star" while ice-skating, or halting abruptly to watch the mountains spin by "even as if the earth had rolled/With visible motion" (Prelude, I, 4 0 5 ^ 1 2 , 472, 485^86). Optical illusions, like the "spots of time," with which they are associated, are "scattered everywhere" in Wordsworth's poetry. To the mind not in sympathy with nature's vital power, illusion turns easily to delusion. The perception of callous Peter Bell is baffled as in the moonlit water he beholds, not "the moon's distorted face," nor "the ghost-like image of a cloud," nor even his own reflection, but the face of a drowned corpse. Peter's senses are victimized in fright by "the Spirits of the Mind" : Upon the rights of visual sense Usurping, with a prevalence More terrible than magic spell.

(11. 916-920)

In the furze beneath the "shivering aspen," he sees a projection, "His very self in form and feature," hovering over the prostrate figure of an abused bride: "With agony his eye-balls ache/While he beholds.../ This miserable vision!" (11. 933-935). Even that meticulous narrator of The Thorn, who seeks to confirm his observations with measurement, as if truth like Newton's light were a material "external thing," is deluded by his own eyes: "I thought I saw a jutting crag," he tells us, as Wordsworth manipulates a double irony in his mistaking Martha Ray for a "jutting crag" of shelter, then swearing by his own manhood: "as I am a man,/Instead of a jutting crag I found/A woman" (11. 181-187). Although always attentive to a higher truth in an apparent illusion, Wordsworth also carefully explores the liminality of the eye. He makes 37

C . J . Wright, "The 'Spectre' of Science. The Study of Optical Phenomena and the Romantic Imagination," Journal of the Warburg and Courtland Institution, XLIII (1980), 186-200. Scientific accounts of optical illusions appear frequently in the Philosophical Transactions during the first decades of the nineteenth century. Such accounts are reviewed in David Brewster, Letters on Natural Magic (London: John Murray, 1932).

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the physiological presence abundantly evident, for example, in the negative after-images of bright shadows against a darkened glare which he describes as held within the averting eye. Thus the evening moon shining through the trees, "kindling on all sides/Their leafy umbrage," becomes an image that "Burns, like an unconsuming fire of light" and "turns the dusky veil/Into a substance glorious as her own,/Yea, with her own incorporated by power / Capacious and serene" (Excursion, IV, 1062-1075). The after-image, "incorporated" as physiological response of the eye, Wordsworth takes as liminal sign or symbol of how perception impresses the conscious mind and is retained by imagination and memory. H e describes, too, the feigning simulation and myth-making proclivity of the eye that may transform "withered boughs grotesque" into "lurking Satyrs" (Excursion, IV, 879-886). Wordsworth makes use, as well, of the pathology of perception, the limitations, distortions, and sufferings of sight: these visual orbs, Though inconceivably endowed, too dim For any passion of the soul that leads to ecstasy.

(Excursion, IV, 180-182)

Thus darkness and delusion round our path Spread, from disease, whose subtle injury lurks Within the very faculty of sight.

(Excursion, V, 512-514)

Expecially pertinent to the problem of how the mind is fitted to nature, and, that theme more rare, how nature is fitted to the mind, is the investigation of the moral provenance and providence of the senses in the tales of the deaf man and the blind man told by the Vicar in Book VII of The Excursion. The question of the blind man, posed by William Molyneux in his Dioptrica Nova (1692), had been pondered by Locke, Berkeley, Condillac, Buffon, and La Mettrie, before Diderot took it up, and gave it a moral twist, in his Lettre sur les aveugles (1749). Whether the experiences previously learned by the touch would be immediately apprehended by sight should the blind man suddenly gain use of his eyes, Diderot claims might have been tested on the occasion of Reaumur removing the cataracts of a girl born blind. Reaumur, however, denied him the opportunity by refusing him permission to be present at the unbandaging of the girl's eyes. Diderot develops his case through his own fictive elaboration of the biographical introduction to Nicholas Saunderson's Elements of Algebra (1740). Saunderson, blinded by smallpox as a twelve-month infant, began lecturing on Newtonian mechanics and optics at Christ's College, Cambridge, in 1710, and was chosen Lucasian professor of mathematics the following year. The Elements of

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Algebra, published the year after his death, contains the memoir composed by several of his Cambridge colleagues.38 Diderot explains Saunderson's invention of an apparatus for conducting "palpable arithmetic," then goes on to explore a world that is palpably known. One who derives his orientation to the world principally through the sense of touch must necessarily order his ethical values accordingly. The vulnerability of a blind man to theft, for example, would in itself cause thievery to rank high in hierarchy of vice. Speculating on the implication of adding or subtracting the senses that contribute to our knowledge, Diderot comes to the conclusion that religious and moral values, even the idea of God, cannot be absolute, but only relative to the physiological capacities of the individual. He invents a death-bed scene in which Saunderson declares: "Si vous voulez que je croie en Dieu, il faut que vous me le fassiez toucher." In Diderot's fiction, Saunderson becomes spokesman of man, "le mecanisme animal," who resigns himself to the ephemeral illusions of his own consciousness, and who dies with the cry: " O Dieu de Clarke et Newton, prends pitie de moi!" 39 In the Vicar's tale of the deaf man, Wordsworth seems to accept the premise that moral values are relative to the capacities of the senses. He stresses the isolation and introversion of the character when deprived of "the precious gift of hearing": He grew up From year to year in loneliness of soul;

38

39

Written by Thomas Nettleton and Richard Wilkes, with contributions from Rev. J. Boldero, Rev. Gervas Holmes, Rev. Granville Wheeler, and Richard Davies, the "Life of Nicholas Saunderson" (1682-1739) was prefixed to his Elements of Algebra, 2 vols. (Cambridge, 1740). Denis Diderot, Lettre sur les aveugles, ed. Robert Niklaus (Geneva and Lille: Droz et Giard, 1950); Niklaus provides a thorough bibliography, pp. 103-111. Reaumur's surgery to couch the cataracts of a girl born blind was only one of many such operations which attracted philosophers as well as physiologists interested in resolving the Molyneux question. Berkeley had cited the experiment of William Chesselden in The Theory of Vision Vindicated (1733), in Works, I, 369—400; Fraser lists in his appendix the following cases: William Chesselden, "An account of some observations made by a young gentleman, who was born blind... and was couched between 13 and 14 years of age," Philosophical Transactions, no. 402 (1728); James Ware, "Case of a young Gentleman, who recovered his Sight when Seven Years of Age," Phil. Trans. (1801), pp. 382-396; Everard Home, "An Account of two Children born with Cataracts in their E y e s . . . with Experiments to determine the proportional Knowledge of Objects acquired by them immediately after the Cataracts were removed," Phil. Trans. (1807), pp. 83-92; James Wardrop, "Case of a Lady born blind, who received Sight at an advanced Age," Phil. Trans. (1826; Part III), p. 529-540. For a summary of recent research on sensory substitution, see M.J. Morgan, Molyneux' Question (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1977), 197-207.

Wordsworth: An Auxiliar Light And this deep-mountain valley was to him Soundless, with all its streams The agitated scene before his eye Was silent as a picture: evermore Were all things silent, wheresoe'er he moved.

191

(Excursion, VII, 401-416)

In spite of the aloof detachment acquired from living in a silent world, his character is balanced "by the solace of his own pure thoughts"; in his watchful attention to the unheard activity about him, he exercises a peculiarly selfless, yet estranged generosity: The plough he guided, and the scythe he swayed; And the ripe corn before his sickle fell Among the jocund reapers. For himself, All watchful and industrious as he was, He wrought not: neither field nor flock he owned: No wish for wealth had place within his mind; Nor husband's love, nor father's hope or care.

(Excursion, VII, 421—427)

The tale of the blind man, narrated in tribute to John Gough (1757-1825), the blind mathematician and botanist of neighboring Kendal, significantly amends the doctrine that morality is relative to the capacities of the senses. Indeed, when the tale is told, the Wanderer insists upon the amendment: But proof abounds Upon the earth that faculties, which seem Extinguished, do not, therefore, cease to be. And to the mind among her powers of sense This transfer is permitted, - not alone That the bereft their recompense may win; But for remoter purposes of love And charity; nor last nor least for this, That to the imagination may be given A type and shadow of an awful truth.

(Excursion, VII, 518-527)

In "The Soul and Its Organs of Sense," Coleridge himself had similarly given the example of John Gough to argue that the mind, as receptive organ of consciousness, retains its capacities of ordering the perceptions of all the senses, even if the sensitive organs - such as the eyes or the ears - should be damaged. "Inward Blindness," Coleridge declares, is far more crippling than the loss of sight. On the same philosophical ground that prompted Wordsworth's declaration in the Prospectus that "The external world is fitted to the Mind," Coleridge asserted that "the mind makes the sense far more than the senses make the mind." A thorough compilation from the journals of medicine and physiology of all "cases that relate to the human faculties under unusual circumstances, (for pathology is the crucible of physiology)," Coleridge proposes, would

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provide for a more comprehensive knowledge of how the individual judgment (Urteilskraft) succumbs or, if "energetic and watchful," counteracts the imperfections produced by a "diseased state of an organ of sense, or of the inner organs connected with it." With this vigilance of judgment, the understanding will not be impaired "when the organ is obliterated"; rather, the mind "applies some other organ to a double use." Blinded by smallpox before he was three, John Gough learned geometry and algebra with the aid of a peg-board abacus, an elaboration of Saunderson's device for "palpable arithemtic."40 Because of the detailed accuracy of his description of plants, Jonathan Stokes and William Withering accepted Gough's records, without requiring specimens, when preparing the enlarged compendium, Systematic Arrangement of British Plants (3rd ed., 1796). For the 1835 edition of A Guide Through the District of the Lakes, Wordsworth had Thomas Gough prepare the botanical lists from his father's comprehensive inventory of Lake Country flora.41 John Gough, as Coleridge testifies, had acquired such acute visual access to nature through touch that he had become "an infalliable botanist and zoologist": "As to plants and flowers, the rapidity of his touch appears fully equal to that of sight; and the accuracy greater." Wordsworth gives the same praise: No floweret blooms Throughout the lofty range of these rough hills, Nor in the woods, that could from him conceal Its birthplace; none whose figure did not live Upon his touch

(Excursion, VII, 498-502)

Coleridge describes John Gough's countenance as animated with intense concentration and alert receptivity: "his face sees all over! It is all one e y e ! . . . the undisturbed ectypon of his own soul."42 Wordsworth provides this portrait: - Methinks I see him - how his eye-balls rolled, Beneath his ample brow, in darkness paired, But each instinct with spirit; and the frame Of the whole countenance alive with thought.

(Excursion, VII, 507-510)

Wordsworth's Wanderer does not argue that the remaining senses merely compensate for the sense that has been lost, rather he affirms that 40

41

42

Thomas Gough, "Memoir of John Gough," in Cornelius Nicholson, Annals of Kendal (Kendal: Nicholson, 2nd ed. 1861), pp. 355-368. Owen and Smyser, Prose Works of Wordsworth, II, 134; quoted from unpublished letters of Wordsworth to Hudson in 1842 (in Wordsworth Library). The Literary Remains of Samuel Taylor Coleridge, ed. H . N . Coleridge, 4 vols. (London: Pickering, 1836-1839), I, 323-330.

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within the mind a "transfer" of sensory data complements the perception. In his reliance on memory to reanimate the aesthetic moment - the spontaneous overflow of powerful emotions recollected in tranquillity Wordsworth was convinced of the mind's ability to rekindle imagery closely akin to the original excitation of the senses.43 Furthermore, he was particularly attentive to the power of the imagination as "auxiliar light" {Prelude, II, 368) unto an "inner eye" {Prelude, V, 453). Thus could the prophet Teiresias (who forfeited his eyes for looking upon naked Athena) and the poets Homer and Milton conjure their startling images across the threshold of blind darkness, "And all who heard should see them there." The Wanderer celebrates their privileged vision: Unto the men who see not as we see Futurity was thought, in ancient times, To be laid open, and they prophesied. And know we not that from the blind have flowed The highest, holiest, raptures of the lyre: And wisdom married to immortal verse?

(Excursion, VII, 531-536)

The cruel, jealous, and inhumane machinations of Oswald deliberately expose Herbert, the blind old man of The Borderers, to his inevitable death upon the rocky cliffs. The guiding hand of providence, "if good Angels love to wait / On the forlorn unfortunate," seems to protect "The Blind Highland Boy" through his adventurous voyage on Loch Leven as the tide pulls him almost beyond the range of "any human eye." The crucial attribute of John Gough in his blindness is the self-sufficiency of his "enlightened" perception which guides him along "the precipice's airy brink" as surely as "a man whose eye/Beholds the gulf beneath." When Wordsworth distinguishes in Tintern Abbey between the "tranquil restoration" of "beauteous forms" remembered in "hours of weariness," and the apparent want of excitation of "a landscape to a blind man's eye," what is wanting is imaginative engagement, not sight per se. Certainly, Wordsworth was a poet of perception, but for him that meant he must be concomitantly a poet of imagination. In the Immortality Ode, he lamented the loss of the "glory" he had perceived as a child, when his eyes beheld all objects as adorned in "celestial light." More poignant than the loss of the "visionary gleam" was the loss confronted by the blind man. The recompense, however, derives from the same source: the "philosphic mind" must assure the persistence of "primal

43

Preface (1802) to Lyrical Ballads; Owen and Smyser, Prose Works of Wordsworth,'I, 126-127, 148-151, and commentary 170-171,184-185, cite Prelude (1805), XII, 1-10 as parallel poetic statement; for analogues to the dialectic of spontaneous overflow and tranquil recollection, they quote from Denis, Diderot, and Schiller.

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sympathy." In the Ode, Wordsworth professes his faith that "the fountain-light of all our day," the "master-light of all our seeing," is sustained in mind and not to be abolished by mere external adversity. His tribute to John Gough opens with a paean to light: Soul-cheering Light, most bountiful of things! Guide of our way, mysterious comforter! Whose sacred influence, spread through earth and heaven, We all too thanklessly participate, Thy gifts were utterly withheld from him.

(Excursion, VII, 482—487)

From this apparent deprivation, Wordsworth exalts John Gough as a scientist fully endowed with the compensatory powers of mind "by science led, / His genius mounted to the plains of heaven" (505-506). The endeavor to fulfill Coleridge's plan of synthesizing poetry and science, history and philosophy, the progress of man and society, led Wordsworth in Book VIII to a consideration of the consequences of the enlightenment and the industrial revolution. Here the Wanderer, sounding much like Humphry Davy in his lectures on "Art and Science," 44 insists on the moral ground of the inquiring mind. The physical sciences, as the effort to attain "intellectual mastery . . . / O'er the blind elements" and to impart a " s o u l / T o brute matter," may well endanger rather than benefit mankind unless pursued with moral purpose. The advance of science, "the force of those gigantic powers/That, by the thinking mind, have been compelled/To serve the will of feeble-bodied Man," may corrupt and destroy an entire government and nation if they be "dazzled" by the "might" of their "dominion over nature." The rise and fall of nations, of Thebes, of Tyre, attests to the consequences of such corruption. Wordsworth conforms to Coleridge's plan to show the historical course of "sore evils" caused by selfish schemes and false philosophy: - Call Archimedes from his buried tomb Upon the grave of vanished Syracuse, And feelingly the Sage shall make report How insecure, how baseless in itself, Is the Philosophy whose sway depends On mere material instruments; - how weak Those arts, and high inventions, if unpropped By virtue.

(Excursion, VIII, 220-227)

After Coleridge rendered his "comparative censure" of The Excursion, Wordsworth labored with frustration to proceed with the final, the 44

Davy, "Parallels between Art and Science," The Director, 193-198.

II, no. 19 (30 May 1807),

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titular installment of this mammoth project. The letters of Dorothy, and later of Dora, mention The Recluse in a series of embarassing apologies for the postponements, and hopes of progress at a resurgence of effort which invariably proved fitful and of short duration.45 Wordsworth attempted many a poetic exercise in his search for a strategy suitable to Coleridge's grand plan. Fifteen years after the publication of The Excursion, Dora, accustomed, even enured, to such delays, wrote to Edward Quillinan: Father bids me tell you that he has removed the 1 st stanza of his "Sound Poem," as I call it, with which you were pleased to a place where it tells more & has written another stanza which is a better introduction - We all think there is a grandeur in this Poem but it ought to have been in the "Recluse" & Mother on that account but half enjoys it (21 November 1829).46

"Sound Poem," published as " O n the Power of Sound" in Yarrow Revisited and other Poems (1835), might well have assumed a proper place in The Recluse, for it addresses the phenomena of perception with a careful deliberation on cause and effect, and strives to define the ethical as well as the aesthetic import of sound. Here may be discovered a close conformity to Coleridge's recollection in Table Talk about the plan of The Recluse as treating "a subject of eye, ear, touch, and taste, in contact with external nature, and informing the senses from the mind." Wordsworth, however, encountered insurmountable difficulties in trying to demonstrate convincingly a link between moral action and the capacities of perception. Certainly he recognized the logical leap, post hoc propter hoc, of claiming as necessary, universal models of moral development the individual personalities described in the Vicar's tales of the deaf man and the blind man. The prose "Argument" to the "Power of Sound" thus describes the frustrating crux: "Wish uttered (11th Stanza) that these ["sounds acting casually and severally" on the mind] could be united into a scheme or system for moral interests and intellectual contemplation." 47

45 46

47

Darlington, Introduction, Home at Grasmere, pp. 14-17, 22-32. Unpublished letter, Dove Cottage papers; quoted in Darlington, Introduction, Home at Grasmere, p. 27. Wordsworth, Poetical Works, II, 323, commentary, 525-527. Douglas Bush, Science and English Poetry (New York: Oxford University Press, 1950), p. 96, noted Wordsworth's belated willingness to deal more directly with scientific matters: "specific allusions to science appear mostly in the later poems that people do not read." During this period, William Rowan Hamilton provides an important stimulation to Wordsworth's interest in science; George Dodd, "Wordsworth and Hamilton," Nature CCVIII (1970), 1261-1263.

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The opening stanza, as Dora explained, had been added as a "better introduction," replacing the stanza, perhaps IV, moved "to a place where it tells more." The poem now begins with the analogy of light and sound: Thy functions are ethereal, As if within thee dwelt a glancing mind, Organ of vision! And a Spirit aerial Informs the cell of Hearing, dark and blind.

(11. 1-4)

This is not the commonplace analogy of propagation: light and sound both travelling as vibrations through the aether. Such was the analogy that Thomas Young had delineated in his essays on "Sound and Light." 48 Because Wordsworth is concerned with how the mind informed the senses, he uses the analogy to conjure a peculiar and paradoxical synaesthesia: inside the ear is an eyeball that accomplishes the "transfer" presumed by the Wanderer. The mental dimensions of space and time he thus posits within the arena of consciousness remain in anarchy. Not yet under the control of judgment, the perception remains a "labyrinth, more dread for t h o u g h t / T o enter than oracular cave." Indeed, within this labyrinth there apparently prowls a monstrous minotaur utterly amoral and passionately amok: Strict passage, through which sighs are brought, And whispers for the heart, their slave; And shrieks, that revel in the abuse Of shivering flesh; and warbled air, Whose piercing sweetness can unloose The chains of frenzy, or entice a smile Into the ambush of despair.

(11. 5-13)

As Wordsworth justified the metaphor of the mental eye within the ear, he intended to address the ear, pro persona, "as occupied by a spiritual functionary, in communion with sound," and then to trace, through the

48

Thomas Young, "Outlines of Experiments and Inquiries respecting Sound and Light" (read 16 January 1800), Phil. Trans. (1800), p. 106-150; "A Letter... respecting Sound and Light, and in Reply to some Observations of Professor [John] Robison [articles on Temperament and Trumpet in the supplement to the Encyclopaedia Britannica, 1800]," Journal of Natural Philosophy V (August, 1801), 161-167. In his Royal Society paper, Young's key argument on undular propagation is presented in the tenth of his "principal inductions": "Of the Analogy between Light and Sound." He draws from Newton, Opticks, Book II, Part III, Proposition XVI, and Book III, Query XVII, in trying to reconcile the arguments of Euler with the rectilinear emission theory. Wordsworth's formulation of the light-sound analogy addresses the perceptual response in a manner similar to John Gough's analogy of auditory and optical illusions in his essays on ventriloquism in Nicholson's Journal of Natural Philosophy.

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succeeding five stanzas, the causes and effects implicating the mind. The sounds of nature, of wind and of water, of lion and of lamb, tutor the "invisible Spirit" of perception with "untired powers." The roar of the lion, amplified from its own Cartesian vortex, proclaims a territorial right: "Here I « m , / H o w fearful to the desert wide." Sound, as the phenomena of hearing, always presumes an auditor, even if none other than the noisy self. At the close of the second stanza, for the moment begging the question of the moral ground, Wordsworth introduces a fictive "other," the auditor Mercy, w h o listens with sentimental compassion "to nun's faint throb of holy fear, / To sailor's prayer breathed from a darkening s e a , / O r widow's cottage-lullaby." The third stanza again emphasizes the mental identity of light and sound - "Ye Voices, and ye Shadows / And Images of voice" - and goes on to describe the visual ceremony of sound, "bridal symphony" and rustic love-ditty, in the celebration of life. With this link between sound and the rites and festivities of human experience, Wordsworth locates a moral seed in the sensory response and begins to trace (Stanza IV) how it is nourished by the mind. Sound, as auxiliar light, not only "brightens / The blind man's gloom" and "lightens" the peasant's "duteous toil," but also generally extends a radiance to experience of harsh darkness. Song therefore becomes a communal activity (Stanza V), an inspiration to fellowship and "civic renovation." Fortified with all this benevolence in sound, Wordsworth now returns to confront that brutish minotaur lurking in the labyrinthine ear: " H o w oft along thy mazes, / Regent of sound, have dangerous Passions trod!" (Stanza VI). Somehow judgment must arbitrate, the poet implores in lines of optative urgency, over "the cozenage of sense," the "voluptuous influence," the "sick Fancy," the suicidal despair that may otherwise wield a compelling sway over the vulnerable senses. Wordsworth here expects the "spiritual functionary" residing within the ear, the "glancing mind, / Organ of vision," to exercise moral responsibility and avert disaster: And let some mood of thine in firm array Knit every thought the impeding issues needs, Ere martyr burns, or patriot bleeds !

(11. 94-96)

As in the "Power of Music" (1806), similar in purport yet very different in both example and argument, the next three stanzas (VII-X) furnish instances of the power of rhythm and the melodic line to sway the mind. Even in "the mouldy vaults of the dull idiot's brain," the sound of reason in "solemn cadences" transmutes, convulses the dim auditor, "By concords winding with a sway /Terrible for sense and soul." The songs of both bard and shepherd serve to awaken man to his own benumbed

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potential, and to teach him to feel and live: "To life, to life give back thine ear." The crux of Stanza XI, which Wordsworth acknowledged in his prose "Argument," is expressed in the apt metaphor of a balance to weigh the sound that has been weighed by the mind ("to ponder" in its literal sense): O for a balance fit the truth to tell Of the Unsubstantial, pondered well !

(11.174-175)

In lieu of such scales to measure the wealth of mind, Wordsworth appeals to "the Pythagorean theory of numbers and music." Because the proportions of the octave (2:1), and the source of all consonance and harmony as expressed in the ratios of 1, 2, 3, and 4,49 appeared to account for the very "motions of the universe," perhaps, as Wordsworth phrases this speculation in his "Argument," one could also consider "imaginations consonant with such a theory." In stanzas XII and XIII, he translates into poetry his speculation on the mind as interior universe of Pythagorean harmony: By one pervading spirit Of tones and numbers all things are controlled, As sages taught, where faith was found to merit Initiation in that mystery old. The heavens, whose aspect makes our minds as still As they themselves appear to be, Innumerable voices fill With everlasting harmony.

(11.177-184)

The conclusion (Stanza XIV) returns to the analogy of light and sound, but gives primacy to sound: "A Voice to Light gave Being." In the beginning was the Word, and when all light shall fail, the Word "shall not pass away." In spite of his conscientious effort, the analysis he attempted in "The Power of Sound" took him further away from the problem by engaging the same sort of infinite regress that also ensnared Walt Disney in his film on perception for the Bell Telephone Company. The Disney film depicts various chambers within a cross-section of the head; in the optical chamber sits "a little man watching a television screen, connected to the eyes." Hence the regression: "Pressumably inside the head of the

Benjamin Stillingfleet, Prindples and Power of Harmony (London, 1771), a commentary on Tartini, Trattato di musica (Padua, 1754). See also: R. L. Crocker, "Pythagorean Mathematics and Music," Journal of Aesthetics and Art Criticism, XXII (1963-1964), 189-198, 325-335. For an examination of sound and light in The Prelude, see: Kiyoshi Miyagawa, "Sound and Vision in Wordsworth's Poetry," Studies in English Literature (1981), 25-42.

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little man is an even smaller man watching an even smaller television screen, and so ad infinitum." 50 Disney could have learned an animating trick from Wordsworth, for an "Organ of Vision" and an amoral monster roving the tympanic cavity certainly provide more dramatic action than a passive viewer before a screen. Although there is considerable merit in the endeavor, Wordsworth was still unable to define the morality mediated by the eye or ear, nor could he, after thirty years, prove the truth he firmly upheld in such poems as "Expostulation and Reply" and "The Tables Turned" (1798): O n e impulse from the vernal wood May teach you more of man, Of moral evil and of good, Than all the sages can.

Wordsworth's great contribution, both to poetry and to perception theory, was in his scrupulous attention to the processes of sensory experience, immediate and recollected. By way of providing a synopsis of Wordsworth's principal concerns with liminality and mediation of the eye, I shall conclude with four passages from The Prelude: (1) "As one who hangs down-bending from the side/Of a slow-moving boat" (II, 247-261); (2) the "giant" shepherd with "sheep like Greenland bears" (VIII, 390-428); (3) "As when a traveller hath from open day/ With torches passed into some vault of earth" (VIII, 711-741); (4) the sudden emergence of the moon at the top of Mount Snowdon (XIII, 36-119). The first and third of these passages are epic similes, one exemplifying perception as memory, the other as imagination, "Eyes that perceive through minds that can inspire" (1850 Prelude, VIII, 589). The second and fourth exhibit perception as consciousness. The first example provides a situation that has obvious metaphorical and perceptual similarities to the scene already cited from Peter Bell. In studying the "wavering motion" of reflection and refraction, Wordsworth's observer in the boat seems to witness the temporal pulse of light divide just as the spatial images coalesce: As one who hangs down-bending from the side Of a slow-moving Boat, upon the breast Of a still water, solacing himself With such discoveries as his eye can make, Beneath him, in the bottom of the deeps, Sees many beauteous sights, weeds, fishes, flowers, Grots, pebbles, roots of trees, and fancies more,

50

Gordon Rattray Taylor, The Natural History of the Mind (New York: Dutton, 1979), p. 190.

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Yet often is perplex'd and cannot part The shadow from the substance, rocks and sky, Mountains and clouds, from that which is indeed The region, and the things which there abide In their true dwelling; now is crossed by gleam O f his own image, by a sunbeam now, And motions that are sent he knows not whence, Impediments that make his task more sweet.

(IV, 247-261)

Because Wordsworth is describing light as sight, there is a human purpose in this play of refraction and reflection. The eye seeks to penetrate to the "beauteous sights" of the depth but is "perplexed" by the mirroring surface.51 As simile, memory seems to be represented as the depth, the deep past that is obscured by the reflections of the depth, the deep past that is obscured by the reflections of the present. Before one attempts to wring from this simile the strange epistemology that memory, therefore, is the "substance" and "true dwelling" of the mind, while the present is but a distracting "shadow," it should be remembered that this simile describes Wordsworth's autobiographical purpose to retrieve from the past an image of himself and the growth of his mind. There is a fine irony, then, in the "gleam/Of his own image" in the present that hinders the search into the past. The "motions" ("tremulous motions" A2, C; "wavering motions" E) of the surface not only perplex perception, they render the interchange of refraction and reflection unintelligible: now the deeps, now the surface; now "weeds and fishes," now "Mountains and clouds"; now "his own image," now "a sunbeam"; and still other images, from above or below, "he knows not whence." Such an interpretation of the simile may conform to Raymond Havens' judgment that these lines "express what is more boldly said in III, 612-616" (1850): O f these and other kindred notices I cannot say what portion is in truth The naked recollection of that time A n d what may rather have been call'd to life B y after-meditation.

(Ill, 644-648)

In fact, the simile of Book IV deals with a much more complex structuring of time, space, and perception, for Wordsworth has added to "that which is indeed/The region," layer upon layer. At the bottom, his

51

Unlike the Lockean tabula rasa, the mirroring surface remains in flux; as metaphor of mind it is actively liminal, with before and behind, or above and below, in tension with the surface. E . H . Gombrich, Art and Illusion (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2nd ed., 2nd printing, 1972), p p . 6 , 279, 300.

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observer beholds "Grots, pebbles, roots of trees," yet among these seemingly certain images he freely "fancies more." Floating unfixed, a layer above, he sees "weeds, fishes, flowers," although "beauteous," also ephemeral. N o w the eye rises to the surface, which is not the refractive present but, as Wordsworth informs us, "the surface of past time." The present, then, is the shadow-casting world above, the "rocks and sky, /Mountains and clouds," and the face that casts its "own image" on the unsteady mirror of memory. The parallel to this passage in Peter Bell shares something of the same complexity: For in the pool a startling sight Meets him, among the inverted trees. Is it the moon's distorted face? The ghost-like image of a cloud? Is it the gallows there portrayed? Is Peter of himself afraid ?

(11. 499-504)

Wordsworth assembles even more speculations on "substance and shadow," reflection and refraction, before his character falls in a faint and then awakens "with glazed eye" to look first "sky-ward... to rock and wood" before resting his "wandering eye" again on the "glassy flood" to behold beneath the surface images the face of a drowned man. These teasing questions might be asked in earnest of the observer in the Prelude passage. What, in the language of simile, is beheld in the depths? The fixities of past experiences, distorted by a mind that "fancies more," and submerged beneath the fluidity of responses and motives, "startling and hesitating." 52 The simile of Book VIII develops its analogy for the formative powers of the imagination from the physiology of threshold vision. The shift from photopic to scotopic vision in the adaptation of the eye to darkness: As when a Traveller hath from open day With torches pass'd into some Vault of Earth, The Grotto of Antiparos, or the Den Of Yordas among the Craven's mountain tracts; H e looks and sees the cavern spread and grow, Widening itself on all sides, sees, or thinks H e sees, erelong, the roof above his head, Which instantly unsettles and recedes, Substance and shadow, light and darkness, all Commingled, making up a Canopy

52

Wordsworth, Prose Works, II, 15: "startling and hesitation" are the action and reaction whereby "the two powers of Reason and Nature, thus reciprocally teacher and taught, may advance together in a track to which there is no limit," "Reply to Mathetes."

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Of Shapes and Forms and Tendencies to Shape That shift and vanish, change and interchange Like Spectres, ferment quiet and sublime; Which, after a short space, works less and less, Till, every effort, every motion gone, The scene before him lies in perfect view Exposed and lifeless, as a written book. But let him pause awhile, and look again And a new quickening shall succeed, at first Beginning timidly, then creeping fast Through all which he beholds; the senseless mass, In its projections, wrinkles, cavities, Through all its surface, with all colours streaming, Like a magician's airy pageant, parts, Unites, embodying everywhere some pressure Or image, recogniz'd or new, some type Or picture of the world; forests and lakes, Ships, Rivers, Towers, the Warrior clad in Mail, The prancing Steed, the Pilgrim with his Staff, The mitred Bishop and the throned King, A Spectacle to which there is no end.

(VIII, 711-741)

As with the passage from Book IV, this lengthy epic simile requires a literal and analogical reading through a "surface" of language that reflects and refracts meaning and, again, confounds "substance and shadow" (IV, 225; VIII, 719). Wordsworth describes, with physiological accuracy, not one, but two thresholds of adaptation. During the first, the eye sees a movement "Of Shapes and Forms and Tendencies to Shape/That shift and vanish, change and interchange." At this threshold, as scotopic vision is activated in the retina, the darkness "unsettles and recedes" with no volitional control. Gradually, all becomes still. At this juncture, Wordsworth intrudes, anticipating the formative act of "the spirit which giveth life" (I Corinthians 16:3), with an apt and ironic simile-within-simile: "lifeless as a written book." He goes on to describe the second threshold of adaptation, "a new quickening" of color. Scotopic, nighttime vision, which relies on the rods around the fovea centralisis virtually color-blind; whence the old proverb: "At night all cats are gray."54 To the extent that the light of the

53

54

In explaining Wordsworth's description of light-dark adaptation and chromatic adaptation, I borrow a physiological vocabulary which was developed later in the century: Jan Purkinje, Beiträge zur Kenntnis des Sehens in subjektiver Hinsicht (Prag: J. G. Calve, 1819) and Neue Beiträge... (Berlin: Reimer, 1825); Hermann von Helmholtz, Hundbuch der physiologischen Optik (1856-1866; 2nd ed. Hamburg, Leipzig: L.Voss, 1896). John Heywood, A Dialogue of Proverbs (1546), ed. Rudolf Habenicht (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1963), Part I, Ch. 5.

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"torches" may be presumed to illuminate the dark confines and reflect back to the eye, the cones may slowly be stimulated to an unsteady, shimmering perception of color: "Beginning timidly, then creeping fast/ . . . / T h r o u g h all its surface, with all colours streaming,/Like a magician's airy pageant." The most difficult lines in this passage Wordsworth replaced (in A2). He has used a set of terms which require glosses from Kepler and Hume or Reid (or another of the Common Sense School): "The senseless mass," Wordsworth says: parts, Unites, embodying everywhere some pressure Or image, recognized or new, some type O r picture of the world.

His concern with precision is evident in his use of parallel terms: "pressure/Or image" and " t y p e / O r picture." Kepler had argued the necessity of distinguishing between psychical and physical phenomena, using images (imagines rerum) to refer to the subjective mental reception, and picture (picturae) to the apparition seen in the camera obscura, the objective phenomena projected through a lens and intercepted on a screen. The distinction was largely ignored in eighteenth-century optics, for the optical image was considered as an objective entity independent of the observer.55 In his Treatise of Human Nature (1739), following his assertion that "reasoning is always more convincing, the more single and united it is to the eye," Hume introduced the criterion of "vivacity" in dealing with the influential power of ideas as distinct from impressions.56 Thomas Reid concerned himself with mediate and immediate perception, and used the concept of type to mean the model or generic figure by which immediate impressions could be classed and ordered.57 Wordsworth recognizes the relationship between the terms of optics and

55

56

57

Johannes Kepler, Paralipomena ad Vitellionem (1604) and Dioptrice (1611), quoted in Vasco Ronchi, The Nature of Light, trans. V. Barocas (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1970). David Hume, A Treatise of Human Nature, ed. L. A. Selby-Bigge (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1888, rep. 1965), p. 153. Thomas Reid, Enquiry into the Human Mind on the Principles of Common Sense (1764), in Works, ed. William Hamilton; see also Hamilton's discussion of Reid's discrimination of impression and type in "Philosophy of Perception" (1830), in Discussions of Philosophy and Literature (New York: Harper, 1861), pp. 45-102; and in The Philosophy of Sir William Hamilton, ed. O . W . Wight (New York: Appleton, 6th ed., 1890), pp. 165-237, "Elucidation of Reid's Doctrine of Perception."

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perception theory: "pressure [ = impression]58 / O r image" refer to the subjective reception; " t y p e / o r picture" refer to the objective projection. In the D manuscript (1828-1832), he had tried to simplify the double reference with: "Half seen, created half with wanton power"; he leaves the A2 emendation: "Busies the eye with images and forms/Boldly assembled." In between these categories for the general and particular, "Substance and shadow," Wordsworth had had "recognized and new," which referred to both subject and object, for familiarity and novelty occur both in mind and in nature. The passage concludes with the imposition of the "wanton power" akin to that voiced by Antony: Sometimes we see a cloud that's dragonish; A vapour sometime like bear or lion, A tower'd citadel, a pendent rock, A forked mountain, or blue promontory With trees upon't, that nod unto the world, And mock our eyes with air. 5 ' {Antony and Cleopatra IV, xiv, 2 - 7 )

In Shakespeare's play, this activity of the mind "dislimns" the image of self: "here I am Antony;/Yet cannot hold this visible shape" (13-14). For Wordsworth, although "A spectacle to which there is no end," the formative act strengthens the mind. To be sure, Wordsworth later limited the endless flux of the imaginative process, replacing the ongoing "spectacle" with a "Strange Congregation... not slow to meet/ Eyes that perceive through minds that can inspire." The strengthening of the formative imagination and its continuing as a process "to which there is no end," to turn now to the analogical reading of the double-threshold simile, were experienced as a "Power growing" at his crossing the threshold into the cavernous labyrinth of London: The threshold now is overpass'd, great God! That aught external to the living mind Should have such mighty sway!

(VIII, 700-702)

At first Wordsworth fails to rally against the awesome sight of "vulgar men" and "vulgar forms," "Mean shapes on every side"; he feels

58

For pressure = impression, the OED cites : "All sorts of books, all forms, all pressures past" and "to hold . . . the mirror up to nature; to show virtue her own feature, so corn her own image, and the very age and body of the time his form and pressure," Hamlet, I, ν, 100 and III, ii, 25-27. Wordsworth quotes from the latter line in Prelude (1850), VII, 288.

59

Harden Craig, ed., The Complete Works of Shakespeare (Chicago: Scott, Foresman, 1951). For additional cloud-fancies, see: "Sky-Prospect," in Memorials of a Tour on the Continent, 1820, Poetical Works, III, 193 and note 486; and Excursion, IV, 1158-1165.

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overwhelmed: " A weight of ages did at once descend/Upon my heart." This state, with "no thought embodied, no/Distinct remembrances," is the darkness of the cave. Then comes a threshold of adaptation, "Power growing with the weight"; the strength comes, he says, in "a moment's pause," yet he affirms "it was a thing divine." The double threshold Wordsworth explains in the lines following the simile. In the first threshold, he is moved by "a swell of feeling, followed soon / By a blank sense of greatness; in the second threshold, exercising his acquired "Power," he "afterwards continued to be moved" by the sight of London become a welling "Fountain." The first occurs as a "mighty sway" of "external" things working upon the mind; the second takes place as a willed response and creative reciprocity of mind that witnesses a continuing vitality "of my Country's destiny / And the destiny of Earth itself.'" 0 Wordsworth prepares the way for the apotheosis of the shepherd with a few simple effects of light: suddenly Surpriz'd with vapours, or on rainy days When I have angled up the lonely brooks, Mine eyes have glanced upon him, a few steps off, In size a giant, stalking through the fog, His sheep like Greenland Bears; at other times When round some shady promontory turning, His Form hath flash'd upon me, glorified By the deep radiance of the setting sun: Or him have I descried in distant sky, A solitary object and sublime, Above all height! like an aerial Cross, As it is stationed on some spiry Rock Of the Chartreuse, for worship.

(VIII, 397-410)

Each of these three visually arresting moments is described as a recurring plural event. Each, in the singular, carries the apotheosis forward. As the shepherd retreats into the distance, he gains in divinity. He is first 60

Raymond Havens, The Mind of a Poet (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1941), II, 350-351, 471, assumes that the Grotto of Antiparos is "another instance of Wordsworth's indebtedness to books of travels." It is possible that he reached this island among the Cyclades by another route, not in a book on travel (Havens suggests no specific work) but in a book on optics, for what was interesting about the Grotto was the optical phenomena displayed in its interior. Kant, for instance, in writing about the peculiar refractions, "oft überaus schöne Gestalten," produced by varius crystals such as rhomboid spar, includes among his examples of paroptic diffusion the Grotto of Antiparos; "die Glorie der Höhle von Antiparos ist blos das Produkt eines sich durch Gipslager durchsickernden Wassers," Kritik der Urteilskraft (1790), in Werke, ed. Wilhelm Weichsedel (Wiesbaden: Insel Verlag, 1951), V, 456.

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aggrandized, then glorified, and finally exalted as a cross "for worship." In the first scene, the magnified illusion is wrought by his abrupt appearance "a few steps off," with the observer's eyes "angled up" and perspective obscured in the vapours. In the second scene, rounding a promontory in the middle ground, his " f o r m . . . flashed" before the setting sun, a "glorified" silhouette surrounded by the radiance of paroptic dispersion. The third, set "in distant sky" and "above all height," completes the apotheosis with the visual equation of shepherd and cross. Fulfilling the human potentiality " O f grace and honour, power and worthiness" (VIII, 416), the shepherd is made to represent man beatified in nature, not in spite of the distancing, rather, for Wordsworth, because of it: But blessed be the God Of Nature and of Man that this was so ; That Men did at the first present themselves Before my untaught eyes thus purified, Remov'd, and at a distance that was fit.

(VIII, 436—440)

Such "reverence/Of human nature" could be mediated through the distancing perception, remote from physical immediacy and (to apply here what Wordsworth said of adopting the "best part" of the "language really used by men") "purified indeed from what appear to be its real defects, from all lasting, and rational cause of dislike or disgust." Because of the distancing, man was "ennobled outwardly before mine eyes." He goes on to explain the aesthetics of outward-inward mediation by again appealing, with the inevitable ironic attention to his own poetic text, to the Pauline paradox of the letter and the spirit: "Call ye these appearances - / . . . / A shadow, a delusion, ye who are fed / By the dead letter, not the spirit of things" (VIII, 428-432). What is perceived "outwardly" stimulates the inward response for eyes that learn to interpret the "vital power" of perception. Having learned to read the "living spirit," Wordsworth perceived the shepherd as a being become "spiritual almost/ As those of books, but more exalted far;/Far more an imaginative form" because of the threefold complementation of vital experience, mediating perception, transforming capacity of mind. He chides the disciples of "the dead letter": Whose truth is not a motion or a shape Instinct with vital functions, but a Block O r waxen Image which yourselves have made, And ye adore.

(VIII, 4 3 3 ^ 3 6 )

Wordsworth's shepherd has a recognizable kinship with the shepherd in the epic simile of Coleridge's Religious Musings (1794—1796), who

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represents the p o w e r of regeneration, " b y supernal grace / E n r o b e d w i t h Light*': 6 1 As when a shepherd on a vernal morn Through some thick fog creeps timorous with slow foot, Darkling he fixes on the immediate road His downward eye: all else of fairest kind Hid or deformed. But lo! the bursting Sun! Touched by the enchantment of that sudden beam Straight the black vapour melteth, and in globes Of dewy glitter gems each plant and tree; On every leaf, on every blade it hangs! Dance glad the new-born intermingling rays, And wide around the landscape streams with glory!

(11. 94-104)

A b s o r b i n g such an experience into himself, W o r d s w o r t h m a d e the "vital p o w e r " o f light the agency o f regeneration in the climactic epiphany o f the Prelude.

T h e " d o w n w a r d e y e " startled into perception " b y

the

e n c h a n t m e n t o f that sudden b e a m " in Coleridge's p o e m also excite the vision o n M o u n t S n o w d o n , w h e n W o r d s w o r t h steps t h r o u g h the o b scuring mists into the radiance of the m o o n : When at my feet the ground appear'd to brighten, And with a step or two seem'd brighter still; Nor had I time to ask the cause of this, For instantly a Light upon the turf Fell like a flash: I looked about, and lo! The Moon stood naked in the Heavens, at height Immense above my head, and on the shore I found myself of a huge sea of mist.

(XIII, 36-43)

T h e u n e x p e c t e d e m e r g e n c e o f light b e c o m e s epiphanic n o t as an external d e m o n s t r a t i o n of divinity, but as an external affirmation o f "majestic intellect," a m i m e t i c projection o f mind itself in the act o f p e r c e p t i o n : The perfect image of a mighty mind, Of one that feeds upon infinity, That is exalted by an underpresence, The sense of God, or whatsoe'er is dim Or vast in its own being.

(XIII, 69-73)

A t o n c e image and picture, the m o o n exhibits the functions o f the m i n d as " R e s e m b l a n c e . . . / M a d e visible":

" The Poems of Samuel Taylor Coleridge, ed. Ernest Hartley Coleridge (London: Oxford University Press, 1912, rep. 1960), p. 113. Coleridge again uses this simile of the rustic and the gloria in "Constancy to an Ideal Object" (1826?), where the paroptic dispersion serves as a caveat against confounding the real and the ideal, "subject and shadow," p. 456.

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One function of such mind had Nature there Exhibited by putting forth, and that With circumstance most awful and sublime, That domination which she oftentimes Exerts upon the outward face of things, So moulds them, and endues, abstracts, combines, Or by abrupt and unhabitual influence Doth make one object so impress itself Upon all others, and pervade them so That even the grossest minds must see and hear And cannot choose but feel.

(XIII, 74-84)

The regenerative sun of Coleridge's Religious Musings could not have served Wordsworth's purpose. Like the human mind, the moon's power to illuminate is divinely given: it "feeds upon infinity" and is "exalted by an underpresence." Although the light of the moon is acquired rather than inherent, it is inherently transformed and transforming. Contrary to the Newtonian expectations concerning reflected light, the lunar spectrum did not conform as William Hyde Wollaston demonstrated in 1802, to the solar spectrum.' 2 The light of the moon redefines the objects familiar by day. Because of the limitations of scotopic vision, colors fade, red turns black, orange darkens, green and blue appear as lighter greys. Where color is perceived, as discovered by Wordsworth's traveller in the cave, it shimmers and streams. Again as the mind in the act of perception, the moon alters "the outward face of things." Paramount here for the culminating growth of a poet's mind is the pervasive power witnessed in its "One function" of domination that works with irresistible, irrepressible will: "even the grossest minds must see and hear/ And cannot choose but feel." Wordsworth demanded in his perception theory a vital presence physically felt. Perception was not a matter of materially projected light received as a picture. What he praised in the "perfect image of a mighty

62

René Taton, Saence in the Nineteenth Century, trans. A.J. Pomerans (New York: Basic Books, 1965), p. 145. See also Wollaston's interest in the wave theory in response to Thomas Young's "On the Theory of Light and Colours" (read 12 Nov. 1801), Phil. Trans. (1801), pp. 12—48, as endorsed, for example in Wollaston, "On the oblique Refraction of Iceland Crystal" (read 24 June 1802), Phil. Trans. (1802), p. 381. In 1802 Wollaston developed a total refraction method of spectrum analysis, and was first to observe disparities in the dark lines (subsequently measured by Joseph von Frauenhofer, who invented both the spectroscope and the defraction grid); in addition to measuring solar and lunar refraction, Wollaston showed that the refraction index of Iceland spar accorded with Huygen's construction for the wave-surface. Upon publishing this support for the wave-theory, Wollaston was severely criticized for his anti-Newtonian presumption by Henry Brougham, Edinburgh Review, 11 (1803), 99.

Wordsworth: An Auxiliar Light

209

Mind," was the capacity to impress, transform, create. The prismatic rainbow, the geometric projection within the camera obscura had been wonders of the age past, but science since the advent of experimentation with electro-magnetic and galvanic energy turned the attention of perception theory to the physiological process, to the mediating capacities of the human eye. Newtonian optics were an accomplishment of genius, but were cold and remote from human sight. The coldness is evident in his description of the statue of Newton in the antechapel at Cambridge: "Newton, with his Prism and Silent Face" (III, 59). Twice Wordsworth attempted to augment this passage with some account of himself in the act of beholding: And in the deep midnight when the moon shone fair O r even by dimmer influence of the stars In wakeful vision rapt I could behold Solemnly near and pressing on my sight The Antechapel

(in A2)

And from my pillow I had power to mark Solemnly pressed upon my stedfast gaze By glimmering starlight or with mellow gleams Of moonshine on the branchy windows playing The Antechapel

(in B2)

The emotional tenor of "wakeful vision rapt" or "Solemnly pressed upon my stedfast gaze" remained errant addenda. Wordsworth satisfied himself with the changes he added to copy D (1832-1839). The mediating presence of self is limited and neutral, the statue more remote and isolated. In narrating the apotheosis of the shepherd, Wordsworth proclaimed "the human f o r m / . . . an index of delight/Of grace and honour, power and worthiness." The statue of Newton is also an index: looking forth by light Of moon or favouring stars, I could behold The antechapel where the statue stood Of N e w t o n with his prism and silent face, The marble index of a mind for ever Voyaging through strange seas to Thought, alone.

(1850 III, 58-63)

VII. Coleridge and Jean Paul: The Look of Limbo Although Coleridge was more inclined than Jean Paul to conjure with the mesmeric influence of "the glittering eye," both shared a literary fascination with the dream-vision and the trance. Both, too, frequently built their metaphorical structures from visual effects and optical illusions. Jean Paul assembled his ideas on perception and animal magnetism in his Museum (1813). Coleridge deliberated on the problem of perception most extensively in his Logic (1820/1824). Earlier he had annotated Jakob Böhme's Aurora in terms of his own reading on electricity, magnetism, and optics. At this time, too, he was filling his notebooks with excerpts from Jean Paul: 16 of the 54 passages he translated from Jean Paul deal with optics and perception. Coleridge's Limbo and Ne Plus Ultra, poems which he penned in the midst of his translations from Das Kampaner Tal and Palingenesien, reveal the influence of Jean Paul's nihilistic aesthetic. Not until he assembled his Museum did Jean Paul organize the ideas on organic magnetism and perception that casually informed his earlier works. After completing his study at the Gymnasium in Hof and beginning in theology at the University of Leipzig, Jean Paul's formal education was disrupted by poverty and debt; yet in his ambition as writer he apparently devoured whole libraries, for in the eclectic and erratic style of his mosaic prose of allusion and metaphor, he reveals, amidst other lore, a familiarity with Newton's Opticks, Euler's Opuscula varii argumenti, and Sömmering's Über das Organ der Seele. Whereas Goethe, in spite of his capacious research on optics, never came to terms with the basic issues of the corpuscular and undular theories of light,1 Jean Paul treated the mechanistic approach to perception with scorn in the satire on the "Maschinenmann" in Palingenesien: es gäbe dann ohnehin keine schlechtem Ichs als feine, von Materialisten gearbeitete, mit Gehirnfibern und deren Longitudinal- und Transversalschwingungen bezogne Ichs - ja die Sache wäre übermenschlich herrlich, und die natura naturans wäre verraucht, und

1

Vorschule der Ästhetik, V, 98. Sämtliche Werke, I-VI, ed. Norbert Miller (Munich: Hanser Verlag, 1959-1963), Abteilung II, I—III, ed. Norbert Miller and Wilhelm Schmidt-Biggemann (1964-1977).

Coleridge and Jean Paul: The Look of Limbo

211

nur die natura naturata wäre auf dem Boden geblieben, und die Maschinenmeister würden selber zu Maschinen. 2

Who fails to comprehend the relevance of the "Longitudinal- und Transversalschwingungen" will scarcely understand why Jean Paul, addressing the problem of mimesis within the extremes of poetic nihilism and materialism, opens his Vorschule der Ästhetik with the declaration: "mit Farben kann man nicht das Licht abmalen."3 Although Palingenesien (1798) was published three years before Thomas Young presented his paper on the interference of light waves and twenty years before Augustin Fresnel demonstrated that light waves were transverse and not longitudinal,4 Jean Paul knew, through his reading of Robert Hooke,5 what this debate was about. Hooke, in his Lecture on Light (1672) had speculated that light might move in a manner similar to the wave produced by jerking one end of a rope lying on the ground, that is, in a transverse movement perpendicular to the ray, rather than in a longitudinal movement, like sound, in the direction of the ray. In his "Maschinenmann" satire, Jean Paul still supposed the undulation and corpuscular theories to be compatible: both materialistic and mechanistic. In Museum, his account of light and sight bases perception on energy rather than matter: Das Licht selber ist uns unsichtbar. . . . Die scheinbaren Lichtstrahlen sind bekanntlich nur stärker beleuchtete oder weißere Körperstreife. Die Lichtmaterie, welche an einem trüben Tage durch die Luftschichten, durch die Wolkenschichten und zuletzt durch ein Stückchen Glas hindurch uns alle Gegenstände zeigt, vermag dies nicht mechanisch durch Poren zu tun, weil z. B. in einem Linsen-großen Glas oder in einem Luftkügelchen einer durchstochnen Karte, welches alle einzelne Punkte des weiten halben Gesichtskreises durchgehen oder schauen läßt, in jedem denklichen Punkte Poren, also gar nichts da sein müßte, - sondern als eine Kraft, welche auf das Sehvermögen, wie die magnetische auf das Eisen, durch Zwischenkörper hindurch wirkt! 6

In his subsequent commentary, he opposes the Newtonian rectilinear propagation: "In einem freien Flüßigen gibt es keine Fortpflanzung durch Linien, sondern durch Kreise; wie folglich im Äther keine geraden

2

Palingenesien, IV, 9 0 6 - 9 0 7 . Jean Paul's satire on the "Maschinenmann" and the " F a r b e n s ä u m e . . . als Semiotik" (IV, 903) are discussed by Peter Sprengel in "Maschinenmenschen: Ein zentrales Motiv in Jean Pauls Satire," JJPG X I I (1977), 6 1 - 1 0 4 .

3

Vorschule der Ästhetik, V, 30. Augustin Fresnel, " L a diffraction de la lumière," Annales de Chimie et Physique (2) I (1816), 2 3 9 ; in Ouevres Complètes (Paris: 1866), I, 8 9 - 1 2 9 . Micrographia (1665) and Lecture on Light, in Posthumous Works (1705); Jean Paul also cites the posthumous Philosophical Experiments (1726) in Hesperus, I, 706. "Das Sehen," Museum (1814), Abteilung II, Bd. 2, 8 8 6 - 8 8 7 .

4

5

6

212

Coleridge and Jean Paul: The Look of Limbo

Strahlen- oder Feuerlinien." Denouncing "diesen lügenden Mechanismus - ein Materialismus in der Materie," Jean Paul insists that sight is not the action of "mechanische Lichtstrahlen... welche auf der Netzhaut des Auges ein Bild ausstechen." After emphasizing the organic nature of perception, he will not even concede that sight results from waves of energy striking the retina. Explaining how the image is transferred to the eye does not explain sight: "sondern daß hinter dem Netzhautbilde erst die scharfe Frage über die mögliche Uberfahrt des Bildes durch das Sehnerven-Paar und das Gehirn sich anfängt." How original, how new, how correct is Jean Paul's theory of perception? Not original at all, for unlike Arnim or Goethe, Jean Paul conducted no scientific experiments, but he was certainly both new and bold in his eclecticism, for he had read the available literature and was well informed on the work of Thomas Young showing how light divided into two overlapping beams produced wavy bands of light and dark, a phenomenon that did not conform to the Newtonian theory. Jean Paul knew, too, the work by Etienne Louis Malus on polarized light,7 a course of experimentation that fascinated Goethe and prompted his later work on Die entoptischen Farben.8 Like Arnim and Novalis, Jean Paul turns frequently to Galvanism and electro-magnetism in metaphor and description. His account of perception in the first section of the Museum is presented as a part of his discussion of organic magnetism, in which he relies on Wolfart and Kluge, studies which Coleridge, too, read and annotated.' The Newtonians, led by LaPlace and Biot,10 still held

"Sur une propriété de la lumière réfléchie par les corps diaphanes." Nouveau Bulletin de Science, par la Société Philomatique, I (1809), 266; also "Théorie de la double refraction de la lumière dans les substance cristallines" (1810). Jean Paul refers to the double refraction of spar crystals in Dr. Katzenbergers Badereise (1807), VI, 254. The polarized images of Iceland spar were first described by Huygens, Traité de la lumière (Leyden, 1690). ' Goethe acknowledges the "Entdeckungen und Bemühungen französischer Physiker, Malus, Biot, and Arago" and follows the experiments of Thomas Seebeck, with whom he corresponded in 1812. Goethe's "Doppelbilder des rhombischen Kalkspats" (12 January 1813) was published together with Elemente der entoptischen Farben in 1817. Die entoptischen Farben was completed in 1820. ' Coleridge's marginalia to Carl Α. F. Kluge, Versuch einer Darstellung des animalischen Magnetismus als Heilmittel (Berlin, 1811), Karl Christian Wolfart, ed., Mesmerismus, oder System der Wechselwirkung. Theorie und Anwendung des tierischen Magnetismus als die allgemeine Heilkunde zur Erhaltung des Menschen von Dr. Friedrich Anton Mesmer (Berlin, 1814) bound together with Wolfart, Erläuterung zum Mesmerismus (Berlin, 1815) are forthcoming in George Whalley, ed., Marginalia, The Collected Works of Samuel Taylor Coleridge, 12 (Princeton: Princeton U. P.); volume 1 (alphabetical entries from Abbt to Byfield) appeared in 1980. Jean Paul, in his note to "Mut7

213

Coleridge and Jean Paul: The Look of Limbo

scientific, o r a c a d e m i c , a u t h o r i t y . J e a n P a u l ' s reasons f o r o p p o s i n g t h e c o r p u s c u l a r t h e o r y and f o r a d o p t i n g r e c e n t speculation o n transversal w a v e s is c o n s i s t e n t w i t h the r e s o l u t i o n t o t h e debate o n i m m o r t a l i t y h e p r e s e n t s in Das Kampaner

Tal ( 1 7 9 7 ) and Palingenesien

w i t h t h e critical p r o g r a m he develops in Vorschule

( 1 7 9 8 ) as well as

der Ästhetik.

Mimesis

is at t h e r o o t o f t h e p r o b l e m in p e r c e p t i o n ; the w h o l e o f J e a n P a u l ' s aesthetic g r o w s f r o m this r o o t . J e a n P a u l ' s mimesis geistige

retains its essential p o l a r i t y as " e i n e schöne

oder

N a c h a h m u n g . " A v o i d i n g the p o l a r e x t r e m e s o f nihilism and

m a t e r i a l i s m the " s c h ö n e (geistige) N a c h a h m u n g " fulfills t h o s e c o n d i tions C o l e r i d g e set f o r t h o n n a t u r a l / s u p e r n a t u r a l p o e t r y and the " r e c o n ciliation o f o p p o s i t e o r d i s c o r d a n t qualities." 1 1 B y nihilism, J e a n P a u l m e a n s an idealism t h a t has lost access t o physical reality. Its literary c o n s e q u e n c e is " F a r b e n - S c h a t t e n statt der L e i b e r . " T h e r e c o n c i l i a t i o n is easily a c h i e v e d : " S o ist d e m reinen d u r c h s i c h t i g e n Glase des D i c h t e r s die U n t e r l a g e des d u n k e l n L e b e n s n o t w e n d i g , u n d d a n n spiegelt er die W e l t

10

11

maßungen über einige Wunder des organischen Magnetismus," acknowledges Johann Friedrich Gmelin, Uber den tierischen Magnetismus (Berlin 1788), Wienholt, Heilkraft des tierischen Magnetismus, 3 vols. (η. d.), Gotthelf Heinrich Schubert, Ansichten von der Nachtseite der Naturwissenschaft (Dresden, 1808), K. C. Wolfart, Darstellung einer lebensmagnetischen Kur (Berlin, 1812), as well as Kluge, Versuch einer Darstellung des animalischen Magnetismus. The Mécanique céleste, 5 vols. (1799-1825) was LaPlace's systematization of eighteenthcentury Newtonian gravity-theory. Jean Baptiste Biot's Précis Elémentaire de Physique Experimental (1816) continued to be taught through the first half of the nineteenth century; in John Farrar's translation (omitting "the part upon the polarisation of light, amounting in the original to about one hundred and fifty pages... as not comporting with the design and limits of the work") Biot's text was also taught at Harvard: An Experimental Treatise on Optics (Cambridge, Mass: Hilliard and Metcalf, 1826). Biographia Literaria, ed. George Watson (London: Dent, 1956), p. 174. In Palingenesien, Jean Paul warned against mechanistic reduction: "die natura naturane wäre verraucht, und nur die natura naturata wäre auf dem Boden geblieben, und die Maschinenmeister würden selber zu Maschinen" (II, 907). An all-encompassing organicism, natura naturata, led to mechanistic reduction. Coleridge, for similar reasons, avoids reductionism in formulating a "reconciliation of opposites." He talks about "controul (laxis effertur habenis)" and "subordination." Owen Barfield, What Coleridge Thought (Middletown, Conn.: Wesleyan U.P., 1971), argues the similarity with Goethe's Metamorphosenlehre (1790): "Not only is its method based on precisely what Coleridge demands, namely penetration from natura naturata into natura naturans, but its "archetypal plant" (Urpflanze) is the very embodiment of the idea of polarity as the basis of life. In some of the other writings Goethe's epistemology (so far as he develops it philosophically) is thoroughly Coleridgean" (p. 242). Citing this passage as an "Anglocentric distortion of perspective," Thomas McFarland, in Romanticism and the Forms of Ruin (Princeton: Princeton U. P., 1981), pp. 289-341, examines the context of "Polaritäts-Gedanken" in the period and the various analogues of Coleridge's usage.

214

Coleridge and Jean Paul: The L o o k of L i m b o

ab." By materialism, at least for "der gemeinste Nachdrucker der Wirklichkeit," Jean Paul understands a thing-orientation utterly divorced from all human subjective immediacy. Materialism has its attraction, as Jean Paul explains it, partly because it is the raw material of experience and perhaps more importantly because it facilitates the divorce of mind so that experience may be disowned and treated from an aloof, clinically objective distance: "weil der Mensch so gern seinen Zustand... aus der verworrenen persönlichen Nähe in die deutlichere objektive Ferne geschoben sieht." The result, of course, is a dehumanizing Sachlichkeit. Again, Jean Paul counters with a simple reconciliation : "Denn wie das organische Reich das mechanische aufgreift, umgestaltet und beherrschet und knüpft, so übt die poetische Welt dieselbe Kraft an der wirklichen und das Geisterreich am Körperreich."12 Because he scatters his allusions to contemporary optics throughout his novels in such a casual, off-hand manner, it is clear that Jean Paul presumed a popular familiarity with the topics of the Newtonian controversy. For modern readers, remote from the science of the age, they seem inscrutable. In Siebenkäs (1796/97), for example, Jean Paul describes with two optical tricks a portrait of justice, "die Göttin der Gerechtigkeit"; the first trick: she is painted in invisible ink ("aus Kobald, in Scheidewasser aufgelöst"); the second trick, when the image emerges in green it will appear as if in Priestleyan refraction: Leibgeber hinterließ die stille Aussaat dieser Priestleyschen grünen Materie auf der Wand mit dem frohen Bewußtsein, daß künftig im Winter, wenn der Saal von der Göttin recht warm geworden für eine Prunkversammlung, auf einmal der ganze grüne Markt v o r ihr lustig aufschießen werde. 1 3

The optical illusion functions as a graphic demonstration of satirical irony: an object lesson on the invisibility of justice. Even though she appears green, she may be seen as resplendent as a rainbow. Priestley, as he reported in his History and Present State of Discoveries relating to Vision, Light and Colours (1772), experimented with algaes, demonstrating that organic green, unlike Newton's prismatic green, refracted because of its prism-like celular structure into a full color spectrum.14

12 13 14

Vorschule der Ästhetik, Siebenkäs, II, 64.

V, 3 1 - 3 9 .

Coleridge refers to the problem of organic vs. prismatic green in a notebook entry on Claude-Louis Berthollet, Elements of l'art de la teinture (Paris, 1791; trans. William Hamilton, 1791): "If true, it is a very noticeable fact asserted by Berthollet that the Green of Plants unlike all other green bodies is not divided by the Prism into blue and yellow Light; but is the Prismatic Green. It is the strongest fact, I have yet heard, in favor of the Newtonian Chromatology. - O r may be the Epidermis itself be composed

Coleridge and Jean Paul: The Look of Limbo

215

As early as January, 1796, Coleridge had proposed writing on Boehme, an intention he repeated, under the rubric "Revolutionary Minds," in 1803, and Boehme had been a topic of discussion between Tieck and Coleridge when they first met in 1805. Looking into the set of Boehme's Works he had given Coleridge in 1808, DeQuincey found them, just a few months later, "overflowing... with the commentaries and corollaries of Coleridge." 15 In his letter to Tieck, Coleridge makes it clear that he has little interest in either physical or geometric optics; his concern, thus his emphasis on visibility, lies with physiological optics and the problem of perception. This emphasis is confirmed in the optical imagery of his poetry, for Coleridge develops a narrative structure out of visual expectation and transformation, and he frequently gives symbolic portent to those persistent phantoms of the retina called after-images. As is evident in his Lines Written at Sburton Bars (1795), Coleridge had little understanding of after-images and readily attributed retinal retention to electrical phenomena in organic nature. Even in later years, long after he had deleted the lines on the flower's "fair electric flame" and his explanatory footnote on "Light from plants, " Coleridge was still perplexed by after-images but had come to regard them as an illusion wrought by animal magnetism. Because of his opium-addiction, his perception occasionally suffered from nervous exacerbation and in his notebooks he often recounts the visual confusion in an attempt to sort out efferent from afferent images.16 In The Eolian Harp (1795), composed just a month before Shurton Bars, Coleridge indulges no confusion of subjective and objective phenomena when, squinting at the sun,

15 16

of Prisms / or the like, of which that part only is translucent which in the Prism itself transmits the indecomponible Green? - For on this one fact, as it appears to me, does the whole structure of the Newton Color-lore rest." Notebooks, III, 3606. Goethe addresses the problem in his polemic on Newton's Opticks, II, 224—226. Quoted from DeQuincey, Works, V, 183, in Marginalia, I, 553. In the early stages of his opium addiction, Coleridge grew concerned with optical pathology. He records "wrinkles" within his field of vision, and seeing "figures, even with open eyes, / of squares... of various colours." Notebooks I, 1681 (November 1803), 1737, 1750, 1751, 1765, 1771, 1782 (December, 1803); in one entry (1751), he writes: "I saw a phantom of my face upon the night cap which lay just on my pillow. . . . it was indistinct, of bright colour tho'." In one of the Malta notebooks, he describes twice rousing from short fits of sleep to see, "distinctly sitting in the chair as I had seen him really some ten minutes before," the phantom of his friend Robert Dennison; after a detailed account of the visual attributes of the apparition, a "distinct Shape & Colour with a diminished Sense of Substantiality," Coleridge explains the purpose of such notebook entries: "Often and often I have had similar Experience, and therefore resolved to write down the Particulars... as a weapon against superstition," Notebooks, II, 2583.

216

Coleridge and Jean Paul: The Look of Limbo

he tells: "through my half-clos'd eye-lids I beheld / The sunbeams" dance, like diamonds, on the main." Even though he speculates on the "one, vast intellectual breeze" that causes "all of animated nature" to "tremble into thought," Coleridge doesn't confound the perception with the thing perceived. In Shurton Bars, deluded by the bright flash of afterimage in that mesopic treshold of twilight vision, Coleridge finds an explanation in organic or Galvanic electricity: "From the rapidity of the flash, and other circumstances, it may be conjectured that there is something of electricity in this phenomena." At twilight, as Hermann von Helmholtz explained a half-century later, slower scotopic sight, utilizing the cones surrounding the fovea centralis, begins to take over for the faster photopic daytime vision, keenest in the rods in the middle of th e fovea centralis." Coleridge's "golden-colour'd flower," in effect is seen twice. Although the disjuncture in the time and place of retinal response is minute, the "flash" is startlingly perceptible: 'Tis said, in Summer's evening hour Flashes the golden-colour'd flower A fair electric flame; And so shall flash my love-charg'd eye When all the heart's big ecstasy Shoots rapid through the frame! 18

As the flower releases its electric charge, in Coleridge's analogy, so the "love-charg'd eye" will flash in visual orgasm when the lover beholds again his absent bride. The analogical transition from the electrically flashing flower to the flashing eye is a technique that Coleridge developed more fully and subtly in Lewti (1798) and other generically related perception poems, such as The Picture (1802) and the two DayDream poems (1802). In Lewti, Coleridge's skill in lyric reciprocity of inner and outer eye sustains the visual transformation from the lover's despair to his excited anticipation. In the very act of abjuring, "Image of Lewti! from my mind/Depart," the Circassian lover conjures, again and again, her vivid presence. In the final stanza, the voyeur of fancy would offer his gift of dream-vision to his beloved: "Oh! that she saw me in a dream / And dreamt that I had died for care," ready to surrender life, if only his spirit

17

18

Handbuch der physiologischen Optik (1856-1866; 2nd ed. Hamburg, Leipzig: L.Voss, 1896). The Poems of Samuel Taylor Coleridge, ed. Ernest Hartley Coleridge (London: Oxford U . P . , 1912, rpt. 1960), pp. 99-100. In one of the letters to C . A . Tulk (September 1817), Coleridge reaffirms that "The odorous Effluvia of several Flowers have been found inflammable, and combined with positive Electricity," Letters, IV, 774.

Coleridge and Jean Paul: The Look of Limbo

217

keep its sight and behold the promise of the dream: "I'd die indeed, if I might s e e / H e r busom heave and heave for me!" What Coleridge called the esemplastic or shaping power of the imagination is affectively demonstrated in these moments of juxtaposition and transformation of outer and inner vision. To that power, too, belongs not only the invitation to "a willing suspension of disbelief for the moment" but also a lulling of the discriminative facility. In Coleridge's illusion, the objective is transformed by the subjective perception. The reader witnesses the "image.of Lewti" charmed and changed by the images perceived in the external world, forgetting for the moment that the Circassian lover and Tamaha's stream both emerge from the poetic text. The mediating word, as Coleridge describes it in his Logic, is much like the lover who at once conjures and abjures the cherished image. Neither the image of word nor even the image of perception could assure the mind a reliable reproduction of nature. As he recorded in his lengthy notebook entry on perception (AugustSeptember, 1809): Our senses in no way acquaint us with Things, as they are in and of themselves: that the properties, which we attribute to Things without us, yea, that this very Outness, are not strictly properties of the things themselves, but either constituents or modifications of our own minds."

Sorting out and defining such terms as object and subject, sensation and perception, Coleridge argues the phenomenological identity of real and ideal. This is aesthetic ground of Jean Paul's "schöne (geistige) Nachahmung." " A Perception," in Coleridge's adaptation of Kant, results from "sensations organized into an Object, and thus projected out of the sentient Being in real or ideal Space." Both real and ideal, thing and thought, are organized or formed as acts of reason. Coleridge cautions, however, against confounding the two orders of perception. In Constancy to an Ideal Object (1826?), Coleridge renders the caveat poetic with a description of paroptic dispersion in an epic simile on thought: Such thou art, as when The woodman winding westward up the glen At wintery dawn, where o'er the sheep-track's maze The viewless snow-mist weaves a glist'ning haze, Sees full before him, gliding without tread, An image with a glory round its head; The enamoured rustic worships its fair hues, Nor knows he makes the shadow, he pursues!

" Notebooks,

III, 3605.

218

Coleridge and Jean Paul: The Look of Limbo

"This phenomenon," according to Coleridge's note, "the Author has himself experienced," and he cites an account of the optical illusion from the Manchester Philosophical Transactions. He also points to a similar figurative application, describing the response to genius in Aids to Reflection: "The beholder either recognizes it as a projected form of his own Being, that moves before him with a Glory round its head, or recoils from it as a Spectre." This phenomenon is the same as the famous Brockengespenst. Although the apparition eluded him when he climbed the Brocken in 1799, he transcribed a lengthy account from the Göttingisches Journal der Naturwissenschaften into his notebook.20 Jean Paul has Giannozzo sail his flying machine to the Brocken in the Komischer Anhang zum Titan (1801). Unlike Coleridge's woodman, Jean Paul's Giannozzo knows full well that what he witnesses is the projection of his own mind, even though - here is Jean Paul's irony - the paroptic shadow is cast not by him but by a mad "Nachtwandler" who dances foubertageter with the "weiße flatternde Figur" : Endlich faßt er dieses am Hexentanzplatz wie eine Schürze mit beiden Händen und fing eine närrische Minuett mit sich selber an; er kehrte sich um, ein schwarzer Schlangenzopf wuchs lang hinab ; er fuhr wieder herum und sprang und wollte zärtlich minaudieren. . . . Mich schauderte dieses tragisch-komische Konterfei und Fieberbild des Lebens und die äußere Nachäffung meiner Gedanken.21

Coleridge has other instances of paroptic imagery, light breaking at the edge of a silhouette, radiating from a shadow, apparently streaming around a door frame in naughty disobedience of Newton's rectilinear law. The dance of sunbeams through half-closed eyes in Eolian Harp is a paroptic effect. The "flow'ring may-thorn tree" in Alice du Clos (1828/ 29) is described as a light-refracting silhouette. The woodman standing in "glist'ning haze," enamoured of a shadow in its glory, is a poetic kin of other rustics dazzled by a sudden display of light's splendor, or of sight's deceptions. Such, for example, is the shepherd who, in the epic simile of Religious Musings (1794/96), represents the power of regeneration, "by supernal grace / Enrobed with Light": the downcast eyes, darkling and fixed, "all else of fairest king / Hid or deformed," are startled into perception "by the enchantment of that sudden beam"

20

21

Notebooks, I, 430-431. An English version of these accounts of the Brockengespenst and the fata morgana of Messina appears in Sir David Brewster, Letters on Natural Magic addressed to Sir Walter Scott, Bart. (London, 1832), pp. 128 ff., which DeQuincey cites as the source for his "The Apparition of the Brocken," in Suspiria de Profundis, "Works, ed. David Masson (London: Black, 1896-1897), I, 51-54. Komischer Anhang zum Titan, III, 966.

Coleridge and Jean Paul: The Look of Limbo

219

which melts "the black vapour" and reveals the dance of the "new-born intermingling rays" as "wide around the landscape streams with glory." The formula for this epiphany is the resolution of nihilism in materialism, the perceptual moment of "die schöne (geistige) Nachahmung." Jean Paul describes it as a simultaneity of the sense of the transparent and the opaque, the general and the particular; "die lebendige Poesie" exalts both identity and harmony: "kurz, dass sie dem Monde ähnlich wird, welcher nachts dem einen Wanderer im Walde von Gipfel zu Gipfel nachfolgt, zu gleicher Zeit auch einem andern von Welle zu Welle, und so jedem, indes er bloss seinen grossen Bogen-Gang am Himmel zieht, aber doch am Ende wirklich um die Erde und um die Wanderer auch." 22 The reflexive perception of Jean Paul's aesthetic has its parallel in Wordsworth's insistence "that there is a startling and hesitation" which call upon the mind's objective and subjective proclivities.23 The Mount Snowdon passage in The Prelude repeats the epiphany of the shepherd in Religions Musings. Absorbing the experience into himself, Wordsworth ascends through the mists in introspective silence with downcast eyes, when "instantly a light upon the turf / Fell like a flash, and lo! as I looked up. / The Moon hung naked in a firmament / O f azure without a cloud." For Wordsworth, this sudden perception of light became epiphanic not as a demonstration of divinity, but as an affirmation of "majestic intellect" : There I beheld the emblem of a mind That feeds upon infinity, that broods Over the dark abyss, intent to hear Its voices issuing forth to silent light In one continuous stream.24

As in Jean Paul's "Gebrauch des Wunderbaren," the moon may be in heaven, "aber doch am Ende wirklich um die Erde und um die Wanderer auch." To equate light with divinity and, thus, the bewildering perception of light with a unio mystica, or visio beatifica had been the preoccuption of Jakob Boehme in his Aurora (1612). Many of the Romantics turned to him, I think, because his mysticism was tempered with a homely practicality. He was a Grübler who kept an empirical sense of the

22 23

24

Vorschule der Ästhetik, V. 46-47. Reply to Mathetes, from The Friend, Nos. 17 and 20 (14 Decemer 1809, 4 January 1810), in The Prose Works of William Wordsworth, ed. W . J . B . Owen and Jane W. Smyser (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1974), II, 15. The Prelude, ed. Ernest de Selincourt and Helen Darbishire (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1959), Book XIV, 11. 35-77, pp. 481—485.

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Grube; he sought the "Aurora" as revelation "in eine frohe Beschaulichkeit." Jean Paul responds to this sense of Beschaulichkeit when he writes to the philosopher Jacobi (9 April 1801): Ich lese jetzt den Jakob Böhme. Da wo er nur philosophiert und nicht chemisch ist: da (z. B. in der Beschaulichkeit Gottes, in den 40 Fragen über die Seele) ist er tief und edel, sogar ein Prä-Fichtianer. ... Sein poetisches Liebkosen der ganzen Natur und sein heiliges Leben im Allerhöchsten reinigt und hebt mich selber. Dunkel ist er wenig.25

It is surprising, to me, that Jean Paul expresses no patience for Boehme the chemist; his chemistry, along with his "Liebkosen der ganzen Natur," makes up the materialism in the balance with nihilism. Coleridge in his annotation to Boehme's Works, displays as avid an interest in the chemistry as he did in the philosophy and attempted to reformulate Boehme's speculations in terms of the new science, bringing in electricity, magnetism, gravity as relative coordinates of light and color. In attending to Boehme's struggle with the paradox of the negative, on the one hand, and the omniverous pantheism of perception, on the other, Coleridge happily supports and augments the appeal to science, substituting Humphry Davy, Isaac Newton, and Joseph Priestley for Boehme's chemical/alchemical lore. One of the traps of linguistic innatism, encountered by Boehme in pursuing the doctrine of logos, is the acceptance of the divine origin of nature and language, the simultaneity and reciprocity of word and thing, the identity of the "language of nature" and the "nature of language." "Behmen's 'language of nature'," Coleridge complains, "is the great stumbling-block of his works to me." 26 The paradox is revealed in the very postulation of "nothing," a word for nonentity, non-existence. 27 "Nothing will come of nothing," Lear said to Cordelia (I, i, 90); "nothing can be made out of nothing," he said to his fool (I, vi, 132). King Lear was duped by the paradox. Boehme endeavored to overcome the verbal statements of negative theology (e. g., God is zw-zmortal, ¿»finite, eternal, zVwmutable) with the evidence of polarity. Although Coleridge acknowledged that "Positive and Negative, are inconvenient TERMS," 28 he was enthusiastic in ad25 26 27

28

Sämtliche Werke, ed. Eduard Berend, Abteilung III; Briefe (Weimar: Böhlau, 1927 ff). Marginalia, I, 630. Logic, ed. J.R. de J. Jackson, The Collected Works of Samuel Taylor Coleridge (Princeton: Princeton U. P., 1981), pp. 91-92, 160-162. On the negation as difference: "It is not therefore so properly a perception as a sensation connected with some perception, in consequence of some other having been and still being in the fancy, connected with the feeling of expectation." On the paradox of differentiation: "It is the faculty of sense alone that is affected, and the difference is made known to us as an immediate intuition, we perceive it instantly, though we cannot conceive it." Marginalia, I, 640.

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apting and developing Boehme's bipolar model. Among its various representations in Coleridge's notes, the bipolar axis and basis are defined as magnetic (north/south) and electric (east/west), chemical ( N = carbon, S = nitrogen, E = oxygen, W = hydrogen), physical property (light/heat, gravity/mass) and action (attraction/repulsion, contraction/dilation). Annotating Boehme's account of the "Fireflash" kindling the inert "Mass," Coleridge confesses that not all of Boehme's scheme could be reconciled to the bipolar model. 2 ' Nevertheless, Coleridge applies it with many variations, one of which parallels the terms given in his letter to Tieck on Goethe's Farbenlehre.30 T w o letters to Charles Augustus Tulk (September, 1817; 12 January 1818) describe, just as in the annotations to Boehme, the " t w o Primary poles of Nature, Light and Gravitation," as the logos - Light and Love emerging from the Depth, the Darkness, the primal Waters, the Tohu Bohu. Here, too, Coleridge argues that sexual energy provides the "most expressive Symbol: Male and female of the World of Time, in whose wooings, and retirings, and nuptial conciliations all other marriages kai genesis are celebrated inclusively." 31 Coleridge's familiarity with the galvanic experiments of Davy informed his definition of electro-magnetic bipolarity. Indeed, the tetractys Coleridge repeatedly sketches is similar to that subsequently demonstrated by Davy's apprentice, Michael Faraday. 32 The electro-magnetic tetractys Coleridge charted in both physical and metaphysical dimensions: " H u m p h r y Davy

39

30

51 32

Marginalia, I, 611. "Behmen's Sense, nevertheless, is quite plain: as to the first 4 qualities, or material Tetractys - 1. Attractive = astringement. 4. Repulsive = volatile, or ammoniacal. 2. Contractiveungent, splitternde. 3. Dilative = fluxive, melting - 1. Carbon. 4. Azote, 2. Oxygen. 3. Hydrogen: the 1st & 4th, the Poles of the Magnetic axis, or - Line of Basis; the 2nd and 3rd the Neg. and Pos. Poles of the [arch] of the hemispherical or Electrical Surface Line." Marginalia, I, 637-638. "Light issueth forth out of the Depth, and the Depth becometh Gravity: and the Gravity submitteth openeth, utt(o\xt)ereth itself to receive the Light, and so giveth it a resting place of fixity, and the Gravity under the dominion of Light becometh Color: and the Light in love entereth into and yielding itself to the Gravity becometh Sound - So that in Love the fugitive Outward innereth itself and abideth in Color, and the stifled fixed Inward hath Outerance and flight in Sound. Yet not oblivious of their matrix the Sound passeth inward, and the Color spreads itself outward, the latter meeting in the humorous buxom Eye becometh the element of Form for the Fancy and is the formative Light of Life: the former thro' the Ear by the hard metalloid bones and tight tympanum sinketh into the Understanding, and becometh the substance of the Thought. - Color = Lux centripetalis: Sonus = Gravitas centrifuga." Letters, IV, 806. In his Chemical Manipulation (London, 1827), Faraday described bipolarity and the transference of magnetic current. Coleridge gives an account of Faraday in Table Talk, ed. Henry Nelson Coleridge (London, 1836), 29 June 1833.

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in his Laboratory is probably doing more for the Science of Mind, than all the Metaphysicians have done from Aristotle to Hartley, inclusive."33 In his genetic tetractys, Coleridge posits Darkness as the "Eccentric Center." In appropriation of Boehme's "nothing" in the "language of nature," Coleridge asserts an "essential eternal Potentiality." Boehme's "nothing" Coleridge glosses as "the not-thing, το νη ov, not qualified, without poles - in the rest of the Null-punct."34 This "point of indifference" becomes the mesothesis in Coleridge's logical pentad, the point of origin in the tetractys. "Nothing," as Coleridge explains the linguistic paradox, is the something of indifference. Nothing is the generative depth and darkness. In Aids to Reflection (1825), the mesothesis of the noetic pentad is defined as the agere out of which comes the prothesis, sum.15 In "Notes on the Pilgrim's Progress," the mesothesis is the Spirit which generates the logos.36 In the annotation of Aurora, Coleridge locates the Spirit and the Word in depth and darkness: "this was the ineffable Mystery of the divine Self-inanition. But I say again, this is the Depth - in which the Light is Darkness to the Dark, and the Darkness Light to the Children of the Light." In the parallel terms of the noetic pentad and the tetractys of matter and energy, "Darkness" is the mesothesis, "the Bearer of all Light," "the Mother of Attraction and Repulsion."37

53

34 35

36 37

Marginalia, I, 566. Davy, in Coleridge's high praise, would solve the mystery of the elements and "reveal the synthetic Idea of the Antitets, Attraction and Repulsion" (571). "Davy, our Prince of Chemists, has strongly suspected a common principle in Hydrogen and Nitrogen," Coleridge says in appreciation of Davy's experiments with the chemical actions producing, and produced by, electric currents: "Water being the two electricities / Voltaic, Galvanic / in puncto indifferentiae" he says in explaining the bonding through electrolysis (650). For another attribute of Coleridge's relation with Davy, see Suzanne Hoover, "Coleridge, Humphry Davy, and Some Early Experiments with a Conscious-Altering Drug," Bulletin of Research in the Humanities, LXXXI, 9-27. Marginalia, I, 691. The Complete Works of Samuel Taylor Coleridge, ed. W. G. T. Shedd (New York: Harper, 1884), V, 256. Shedd, I, 218-219. Marginalia, I, 651, 653. Water is the prime element: "For Water is the cube of the two poles of Gravity + the two poles of Light. . . . The indifference of the two poles of Magnetism, Carbon and Azote, is its substantial principle: the indifference of the two poles of Electricity, or Oxygen and Hydrogen, is its existential principle." Attraction and repulsion are the dyad of time, contraction and dilation the dyad of space, 563. "Darkness separated itself into Light and Gravity." Darkness, then, is the principle or "Mother of Gravitation - which manifesting itself polarized into Light and Gravity," 663, 665.

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Jean Paul confronted the paradox of "nothing" early in his career. Shortly after his immatriculation at the University of Leipzig, he writes to Erhard Vogel (27 May 1781): Über Ihr Nichts, wovon Sie mir neulich sagten, hab' ich nachgedacht. Der Gedank' ist schön; die Einbildungskraft verliert sich darinnen. Allein ich glaub' Ihnen beweisen zu können, daß es gar kein absolutes Nichts geben kann.38

The proof against an absolutes Nichts became for Jean Paul a life-long literary preoccupation, informing the aesthetic of materialism/nihilism, inextricably involved in the oft-repeated debate on Unsterblichkeit, and the driving force in such bravura-pieces as "Rede des toten Christus" (in Siebenkäs) and "Traum über das All" (in Komet, 1820/22). In July, 1790, Jean Paul had completed "Des todten Shakespear's Klage unter den todten Zuhörern in der Kirche, dass kein Gott sei." The speech has touches of the grave-yard rhetoric of Hamlet, and from King Lear the ravings on the barren heath and the paradox of "nothing": "In dieser weiten Leichengruft der Natur ist alles allein wie das Nichts." 39 Shakepeare may have set the stage, but the satirical shock-value increased in manifold power, when Jean Paul replaced Shakespeare with Christ. Jean Paul had concluded the earlier version with Shakespeare pointing to the ash-heap upon the altar: "das stillestehende Aschenhäufgen auf dem Altar, ich meine das vom verfaulten Jesus Christus." In the revision, Christ arises again from the dead. At the resurrection, the last judgment comes in witnessing an absolutes Nichts. The dead rehearse a nihilistic catechism: alle Toten riefen: "Christus! ist kein Gott?" Er antwortete: "Es ist keiner."

Three scenes, here, are pertinent to Coleridge's blind man beneath the moon in Limbo. First, a grinning corpse opens his eyes: "er schlug mühsam ziehend das schwere Augenlid auf, aber innen lag kein Auge." Then, Christ searches heaven for the eye of God: "Und als ich aufblickte zur unermesslichen Welt nach dem göttlichen Auge, starrte sie mich mit einer leeren bodenlosen Augenhöhle an." And, last, Christ opens his own eyes: "so hob er gross wie der höchste Endliche die Augen empor gegen das Nichts und gegen die leere Unermesslichkeit und sagte: 'Starres, stummes Nichts!'" The vision closes with the ouroboros, "die emporgehobenen Ringe der Riesenschlange der Ewigkeit," tightening its coil around the world until it splinters into the void.40 In "Traum über Briefe, I, 28. ' Abteilung II, Bd. 2, 591. 40 Siebenkäs, II, 266-271. 38

3

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das All," which Thomas DeQuincey translated in his Analects from Richter (1824) and later adapted as rousing finale to his essay, System of the Heavens (1846),41 Jean Paul presents the Nichts not simply as a paradox, but as a dynamic force, the energy of the negative/positive polarity in the eternal creation. Here Jean Paul has directed his argument as Coleridge did in Ne Plus Ultra, where the "positive Negation" of Limbo becomes the "Sole Positive of Night!" Compelled by a necessity similar to that which requires Faust to journey through "das Grenzenlose" to "die Mütter," principles akin to Boehme's primal Geniatrix,42 Jean Paul's dreamer-pilgrim is led through the vast cosmos until he comes to realize that beginning and end are human conceptions. Just as the Fates, whom Novalis describes in the "Klingsohr-Märchen" as inversions of light and darkness, are stopped by Fable from spinning and measuring the thread of human time,43 Jean Paul makes his dreamer recognize the limitation, and the folly, of all human measuring. Jean Paul begins by playing with the most imposing of man's yard-sticks, the speed of light. By measuring the disparity in the duration of the eclipses of Jupiter's moons, Olaf Römer (1675/76) had proof that light was not instantaneous; he estimated the velocity at 192,000 miles per second (186,173 miles per second by modern measure). Jean Paul used the figures he found in Krüger, Über das Verhältnis der Erde zum Weltall (1819). "Ich las die Betrachtungen," Jean Paul declares in his rationale to the dream, "über den gemeinen alten Irrtum, welcher den Raum von einer Erde und Sonne zur andern für leer ansieht." His object is to fill up the Leere. Jean Paul cites from Krüger the boggling estimate: "Die Sonne füllt mit allen ihren Erden von dem Räume zur nächsten Sonne nur das 3149460000000000" Teilchen aus.44 Himmel! dacht' ich, welche Leerheit ertränkte das All, wenn 41

42

43

44

Frederick Burwick, "The Dream-Visions of Jean Paul and Thomas DeQuincey," Comparative Literature, XX, no. 1 (Winter, 1968), 1-26. Boehme's description of the aurea catena as the divine mirror as well as his account of the darkness as primal Geniatrix inform Goethe's account of "die Miitter in an Urfinsternis that is a positive negation not to be confounded with the darkness of Mephistopheles as "Geist, der stets verneint." Friedrich Bruns, "Die Mütter in Goethes Faust," Monatshefte XLII (1951), 365-389. Heinrich von Ofterdingen, Novalis Schriften, ed. Paul Kluckhohn and Richard Samuel (Stuttgart: Kohlhammer Verlag, 1960), I, 301-310. Krüger obtained this interesting number by adding LaPlace's calculation of the orbit of Saturn to pi multiplied 1015. G. W. Schubert played with the calculations of Mechanique Celeste in a similar fashion in Ansichten von der Nachtseite der Naturwissenschaft (Dresden, 1808), p. 389—461. The calculations are much too modest since, by modern calculation, the distance "zur nächsten Sonne," Alpha Centauri, is more than 4.27 light years.

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nichts voll wäre als einige schimmernde verstäubte Stäubchen, die wir ein Planetensystem nennen." The point of the dream is to reveal the energy that fills the void and binds together the Stäubchen of matter. The angel of light guides the dreamer through das All. The final vision is a grand inversion of light and darkness. Says the angel: Vor Gott besteht keine Leere; um die Sterne, zwischen den Sternen wohnt das rechte All. Aber dein Geist verträgt nur irdische Bilder des Überirdischen; schaue die Bilder!

The dreamer then beholds energy made visible: "ein unermessliches Lichtmeer... worin die Sonnen und Erden nur als schwarze Felseninseln verstreut waren."45 Witnessing Boehme wrestling with the paradoxical knot of "nothing" which "generateth nothing," Coleridge agrees with Boehme's resolution of contradictory terms: „if a Will must Generate, then it must be in somewhat, wherein it may generate in that thing; for Nothing is nothing, but a stillness without any stirring, where there is neither darkness nor light, neither life nor death." Boehme does not recognize that the paradox is in language only, and not in reality; nevertheless, he does argue the need for a positive negative, a "nothing" that is "somewhat. " As Coleridge appreciates, Boehme "excellently setteth forth the necessity of a Negative or re-introitive Principle in the infinite Nature." 46 "It is painful to observe," Coleridge also said of Boehme's struggle with the negative paradox, "how this mighty but undisciplined Spirit perplexes his own intuitions by confusion of the Letter with the Life, and of the Symbolic Life with the Letter." 47 When Boehme elucidates the text on "How Noah Cursed His Son Ham" as exhibiting "how Night is hidden in the Day," Coleridge elaborates a further lesson on light and darkness and the negative paradox. Darkness still exists in the light, even though we do not easily perceive its obvious and operative presence. Coleridge illustrates Boehme's meaning with an elementary optical lesson on selfluminous and reflective objects: '"as the defect of self-luminous power in the sensible Objects on the surface of the Earth finds a substitute in the solar light which prevents us from feeling or noticing this defect'." Coleridge's example is "the transparent Chrystal whose proper darkness is hidden by the Light which it supports & permits itself to be permeated by." His conclusion, as in Limbo and Ne Plus Ultra, takes him beyond

45 46 47

Der Komet, VI, 682-686. Marginalia, I, 667. Marginalia, I, 684. On Boehme's "confusion of the Letter with the Life," see Steven A. Konopacki, The Descent into Words: Jakob Böhme's Transcendental Linguistics {Ling. Extranea 7).

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the mere paradox of a positive negative, a "raoi-light" that generates light, to a positive Negation, an "anti-light" that propagates darkness: "if, as Behmen justly teaches, this their darkness is not a mere negation, = 0, but a postive Act of self-privation = — 1 ; that is, if it be not simply oujxos, but αντιφωβ or ens tenebrificum; then the Similitude rises into a fair analogy."48 Humphry Davy, who like Coleridge had a share of the financial support of the Wedgwoods, continued the experiments of the elder Josiah Wedgwood (f 1795) in what came to be called photography. Since silver salts (chlorides or nitrates) darken upon exposure to light, it was presumed that the image screened within a camera obscura could be permanently fixed on a silvered plate. Davy was intrigued with the heat and chemical changes generated by light. In similar experiments, at about the same time, William Herschel identified thermal radiation continuing, and increasing, beyond the visible red end of the spectrum. His study on invisible infra-red was published in 1801.49 In the same year, Johann Ritter, also conducting experiments with prismatically reflected light on plates coated with silver nitrate, found evidence of invisible ultra-violet in the darkening extended beyond the visible violet end of the spectrum.50 Half a century before James Clerk Maxwell or Heinrich Hertz placed the red-to-violet spectrum at a small section within a continuous range of electro-magnetic frequencies, it was realized that the light visible to the eye existed within an array of light invisible. For Coleridge, the spectrum of visible light was thus identified as having plus/minus polarity, not as in Goethe's Farbenlehre because of analogical similarity to the magnet, but because of the "calorific" and "colorific" polarity, the intensifying heat at one end of the spectrum and the intensifying darkness at the other end. After his letter to Tieck (4 July 1817) and his letters to Tulk (September, 1817; 12 January 1818),

> Marginalia, I, 685-686. Although Thomas Young was quick to incorporate the experiments of William Herschel on infra-red and Johann Ritter on ultra-violet into his wave theory of light, Herschel was slow in acknowledging, let alone accepting, Young's work. Herschel presented three papers (1807, 1809, 1810) to the Royal Academy on epoptric refraction (Newton rings) ignoring Young's work. William Herschel, Collected Scientific Papers (London, 1912), p. viii. See Alexander Wood and Frank Oldham, Thomas Young, Natural Philosopher (Cambridge: Cambridge U . P . , 1954), p. 132-133, 180. 50 Armin Hermann, ed., Die Begründung der Elektrochemie und Entdeckung der ultravioletten Strahlen von Johann Wilhelm Ritter. Eine Auswahl aus den Schriften des romantischen Physikers (Frankfurt a. M., 1968). See also: Ernst Worbs, "Johann Wilhelm Ritter, der romantische Physiker, und Jakob Böhme," Aurora, X X X I I I (1973), 63-76. 4

49

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227

Coleridge saw the error of analogy and excluded sound waves from the polar or "antithetic forces." In his explication of the opening of Genesis (Notebooks; August 1818), he acknowledged as correspondent: gravity, light, magnetism, electricity, galvanism. His recognition of a visible spectrum of light within a presumably vaster array of invisible light gave new meaning to the negative and positive polarity.51 Darkness had become, in the laboratory, demonstrably a "positive Negation." Too, Coleridge saw the need to discriminate between light as cause and light as effect, light as noumenal power and light as perceived phenomenon. Both Limbo and Ne Plus Ultra reveal Coleridge's reading of Boehme. George Ridenour has examined Forty Questions Concerning the Soul and The Threefold Life of Man as sources. Ridenour is right, too, in ignoring Ernest Hartley Coleridge's division of the poem, for Coleridge's composition proceeds in a fairly obvious associational sequence.52 Beginning with a satirical sketch of contemporaries, akin to Pope's Bufo, Bavius, Bubo, Balbus, and Sporus, Coleridge portrays "Crathmocraulo's Thoughts like Lice" ("They don't run in his H e a d . . . but he scratches... & then they begin to crawl") and "Tungstic Acid's Wit" (of the Flea kind - skips & b i t e s . . . but they leave a mark behind them"). Kathleen Coburn has identified Tungstic Acid as Charles Lamb: she notes that Tungstic Acid was a topic in Davy's Syllabus in a part of the courses Coleridge attended in March, 1802; Charles Lamb, who stuttered and whose wit leaped in puns, acquired this punning nickname

51

52

Notebooks, III, 4418-4420. Coleridge presents his mesothesis as the "Mosaic Darkness, after the Light had been evoked from it." His noetic pentad: "The Darkness = Gravitation, subsists in Light, but as Light: Light subsists in Gravitation, but yet as Gravitation, the negative Pole of Light twinned with the positive of Gravitation (i. e., the centrifugal power is composed of Contraction and Repulsion) while the Positive Pole of Light is twinned with the negative of Gravitation (i.e., the centripetal is composed of Dilation + Attraction.)." In Coleridge's summary schematic ("the cosmical Decad of the Pythagoreans"): "Grav. = centrifugal and centripetal = - and + Light, colorific and calorific = — and + Magnetism, attractive and repulsive = — and + Electr. - contractive and dilative = — and + Galvanism, separative and constructive = — and + . " George M. Ridenour, "Source and Allusion in some Poems of Coleridge," Studies in Philology, L X (1963), 187-195. Kathleen Coburn, in her commentary on this entry (Notebooks, III notes, 4073-4074), supports Ridenour's attributions in Boehme, and gives the evidence for dating the manuscript containing Limbo and Ne Plus Ultra within the context of the notebook entries of April-May 1811. To date, only Edward Kessler, Coleridge's Metaphors of Being (Princeton: Princeton U.P., 1979) has examined the poems in terms of the associational development of metaphor evident in the full notebook transcription.

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apparently at the time of Davy's lectures.53 Describing Tungstic's jokes as "Flea-skips & Flea-bites," Coleridge must have thought of John Donne's The Flea. After penning a dozen rhyming lines on Crathmocraulo, Tungstic Acid, salivating Copioso, Tungtubig with "a hungry Wit," and Crawl (whose earth-worm Wit lives under ground, / Slow wriggles up to Light in some laborious Quibble"), Coleridge inserts a title, "On Donne's First Poem," and begins a tribute to "that great ancestral Flea... I Immortal with immortalizing Donne." In the edition of Donne's Poems which Coleridge received from Charles Lamb and annotated in 1811, as Kathleen Coburn notes, The Flea is the first poem. Even though Donne could manage "three lives in one flea," Coleridge could not poetically contain his rambling ideas, "cloistered in these living walls of jet." He begins to draw lines from other poems by Donne and to intrude thoughts on Humphry Davy, as potter/apothecary at his experiments with "ghost-Light" of double refraction through rhomboid spar. The lines which follow, E.H. Coleridge separated and entitled Limbo and Ne Plus Ultra. Coleridge added a note at the bottom of the page {f 149): "A Specimen of the Sublime dashed to pieces by cutting too close with the fiery Four in hand round the corner of Nonsense." Although E. H. Coleridge believed this statement referred to an errant passage, belonging to Limbo between lines 2-3, the phrase may well belong among the notes which Coleridge had been recording at the time from Jean Paul.54 Evidently the praise of John Donne's Flea got tangled in a discordia concors on immortality, and Coleridge turned to a nightmarish parody of Karlson's "Klage ohne Trost" (Das Kampaner Tal), the "Teufels Papiere" (Palingenesien), and "Rede des toten Christus" (Siebenkäs).

53 54

Kathleen Coburn gives the reference: Notebooks, I, 977 and 977 η. Kathleen Coburn has identified the following 54 Notebook entries as translations and paraphrases excerpted from Jean Paul: 3684-3689, 3693-3700, 3702-3706, 4039-4041, 4075-4078, 4082-4088, 4090, 4092^094, 4097, 4171, 4174-4175, 4287-4299; the last group of thirteen entries belong to the period 1815-1816; the extensive series of Coleridge's notes from Jean Paul include 41 passages which Coleridge translated between 1810 and 1812. Coleridge selected passages principally from Das Kampaner Tal, Palingenesien, Siebenkäs, and Vorschule der Ästhetik. He also used Henry Crabb Robinson's edition of Jean Pauls Geist, oder Chrestomathie der vorzüglichsten, kräftigsten und gelungensten Stellen aus seinen sämtlichen Schriften, 2 vols (1801 ; vols. 3 and 4 followed in 1802; ed. (anonymously) Pölitz. Jean Paul expressed his anger at Pölitz excerpting his work without his permission: "Das Schaf, das eine Chrestomatie oder Jean Pauls Geist aus meinen Werken auszog mit den Zähnen, bekommt aus jedem Bande einen Band zu extrahieren in die Hand, so daß besagtes gar keine Auslese, sondern nur eine Abschrift zu machen braucht, samt den einfältigsten Noten und Präfationen," Flegeljahre, II, 585.

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The pivotal point might well have been Coleridge associating Donne's The Flea with Pasquier's extempore, La Puce, which Jean Paul calls forth in Palingenesien, declaring in ironic enthusiasm that he can imagine no subject more perfect: "keine grössere poetische Vollkommenheit annehmen kann als eine - Flohiade."55 Jean Paul, virtuoso in the juxtaposition of nonsense and the sublime and Romantic master of metaphysical wit, defined literature, in his forword to Das Kampaner Tal, as "der elektrische Kondensator der Philosophie": its galvanic flashes discharge a new Horatian lightning, not aut prodesse aut delectare, but erschüttern und heilen. He goes on to define man as a creature of magnetic polarity: "Der Mensch geht nicht allmählich von einer Uberzeugung zur entgegengesetzten - vom Hass zur Liebe - von der Liebe zum Hasse - vom Laster zur Tugend über, sondern mit einem Sprung: bloss ein Wetterstrahl kehret seine magnetischen Pole um."56 The very opening of Das Kampaner Tal alerts attention to its relevance among the sources for Coleridge's Limbo: Da leb ich seit vorgestern: nach Höllenfahrt und Fegfeuerprobe und Durchgang durch limbos infantum et patrum tritt doch endlich der Mensch ins Himmelsreich.57

Because of the running debate "Uber die Unsterblichkeit der Seele," as Das Kampaner Tal is subtitled, the considerations of limbo and an "absolutes Nichts" recur. For Jean Paul, heaven, hell, and limbo are defined through mortal experience: "einigen wurde in diesem Leben ein Himmel beschert, andern ein limbus patrum, worin ungefähr Freude und Trauer gleich wiegen, und endlich einigen eine Hölle, worin der Gram vorwiegt." Man has the capacity of internalizing and amplifying his experiences of joy and pain, "durch das Erwarten, das Erinnern und das Bewusstsein, desselben dreifach verlängert und verschärft." Thus in creating the analog between the mortal and the immortal state, man imagines himself judged eternally to dwell in the arena of his mind's own making. The infinite eye, Jean Paul cautions, is not deluded by such predicaments of human perception: "Dazu kömmt, dass vor dem unendlichen Auge zwar der Gegenstand unseres Schmerzes, aber nie dieser selber als Täuschung erscheinen kann." Precisely because he fails to sort out his truths and errors, and retains both as conceptions abstracted from perception, he becomes, like the lovelorn Karlson, a "Bekenner der Vernichtung" and translates all life into limbo, "als zwecklose stundenlange Lufterscheinungen, als hohler dünner Schatten, die dem Lichte 55 56 57

Palingenesien, IV, 849. Das Kampaner Tal, IV, 564. Das Kampaner Tal, IV, 571.

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nachflattern und im Lichte sogleich zerfliessen und die ohne Spur... hinaus in die alte Nacht verrinnen." In his reply to the Kantian Hauskaplan, Jean Paul says that not heaven nor hell is the common lot, but the limbo of doubt and indecision: "die meisten schwanken dichterisch nach dem Stosse alterniernder Gefühle im Zwischenraum beider Meinungen auf und ab."58 When Siebenkäs, in the "Alte Vorrede" to Palingenesien, launches his diatribe against the Kantian philosopher, he describes him isolated in his own "optischer Betrug" from the Ding-an-sich: suspended in the limbo of an "Inkognito-Universum," the Kantian fails to understand why he should concern himself "um ein ewig gleich dem Nichts verstecktes Etwas." 5 ' In Coleridge's poem, "The sole true Something this in Limbo Den" seems an apt equivalent to "ein ewig gleich dem Nichts verstecktes Etwas," especially when this "Something" of Limbo is considered in the context of the evolving transmigration from immortal "flea," which has "cross'd unchang'd" the gulf of life and death much like perception crossing the abyss separating mind from the Ding-an-sich. Coleridge takes his image of the flea out of the "purgatory fire," through Davy's double-refraction, into the limbo of the mind: Which cross'd unchang'd and still keeps in ghost-Light Of lank Half-nothings his, the thinnest Sprite The sole true Something this in Limbo Den.

Perception is caught and fettered. In Dejection: An Ode, the poet gazes at the moon in despair that he can "see, not feel" the beauty. The "beauty-making power," he argues, depends upon reciprocity in perception, an act through which, as Wordsworth expressed it in Tintern Abbey, the mind half creates what it perceives. The necessity of consummating this marriage of subject and object Coleridge passionately affirms in the stanza variously addressed to Sara Hutchinson and William Wordsworth: O Lady! we receive but what we give, And in our life alone does Nature live: Ours is her wedding garment, ours her shroud!

Without reciprocity of mind and nature, the wedding becomes a funeral. Perception in Limbo wears the shroud in the awful eternity of empty blindness : An old Man with a steady Look sublime That stops his earthly Task to watch the Skies 58 59

Das Kampaner Tal, IV, 608, 618-619. Palingenesien, IV, 736.

Coleridge and Jean Paul: The Look of Limbo

231

But he is blind - a statue hath such Eyes Yet having moon-ward turn'd his face by chance Gazes the orb with moon-like Countenance With scant white hairs, with fore-top bald & high He gazes still, his eyeless Face all Eye As twere an Organ full of silent Sight His whole Face seemeth to rejoice in Light / Lip touching lip, all moveless, Bust and Limb, He seems to gaze at that which seems to gaze on Him!

Ignoring the insistent subjunctive of this passage, Reeve Parker declares that Coleridge has relented in his "vision of limbo" and has given a blessing in this "triumphant encounter": "the moon in the old man and the old man in the moon finding in each other a companionable form." 60 The opposite is true. Rather than a triumph in "companionable form," Coleridge has continued the limbo of isolation and estrangement. The old man and the moon do not find each other at all: both are eyeless, both merely seem to gaze. Here is the "leere bodenlose Augenhöhle" of Jean Paul's "Rede des toten Christus." The nightmare is not one of physical torment, but of mental void, where there are only appearances and no reality: Lank Space, and scytheless Time with branny Hands Barren and soundless as the measuring Sands, Mark'd but by Flit of Shades - unmeaning they As Moonlight on the Dial of the Day But that is lovely - looks like Human Time, An old Man with steady Look sublime

The illusion may seem lovely, but Coleridge has negated perception and left the mind in an "unmeaning" vacuum of apostasy. The passage on the blind man beneath the moon functions as an epic simile on the "unmeaning" time of limbo. Coleridge's "lank Half-nothings" derive from the "hebende Halb-Schatten der Wirklichkeit" in "Rede des toten Christus." The "Flit of Shades" he has from: "An den Mauern flogen Schatten, die niemand warf." The blind old man is Jean Paul's dead-man who awakens smiling as from a happy dream: "er schlug mühsam ziehend das schwere Augenlid auf, aber innen lag kein Auge." Coleridge keeps the delayed revelation: "But he is blind." The image of the sundial in moonlight is Jean Paul's "das Zifferblatt der Ewigkeit, auf dem keine Zahl erschien und das sein eigner Zeiger war; nur ein schwarzer Finger zeigte darauf, und die Toten wollten die Zeit darauf sehen."61

Reeve Parker, Coleridge's Meditative Art (Ithaca: Cornell U. P., 1975), p. 242. " Siebenkäs, II, 267-271. 60

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As I have already conceded, George Ridenour was correct in ascertaining Coleridge's debt to Boehme and in deciding that Limbo and Ne Plus Ultra are "complementary, or even two parts of one single poem." As Kathleen Coburn has explained, Ridenour developed this interpretation without access to the notebook manuscript. This meant, of course, that he was unaware of the conjunction with On Donne's first Poem and of the immediate context of the translations from Jean Paul. How Coleridge adapted and transformed his sources is a complex matter. Both Jean Paul and Boehme are strongly present in these poems, and both are present for the same reason, for both have influenced Coleridge's thinking on perception and negation. The first line of Ne Plus Ultra introduces an antistrophe to the conclusion of Limbo: from "positive Negation" Coleridge shifts to "Sole Positive of Night. / Antipathis of Light." He had discussed the "αντι