The main foundation of the moral law is a good will,[1] which, in accordance with its own nature, is anxious only for the right. The main foundation of character is a strong will, without reference to right or wrong, good or bad, truth or error. It is that quality which every party prizes in its members. A good will cherishes freedom, it has reference to the inner man and to ethical aims. The strong will belongs to nature and has reference to the outer world—to action. And, inasmuch as the strong will in this world is swayed and limited by the conditions of life, it may almost be assumed as certain that it is only by accident that the exercise of a strong will and of moral rectitude find themselves in harmony with each other." In determining Newton's position in the series of human characters, Goethe helps himself to images borrowed from the physical cohesion of matter. Thus, he says, we have strong, firm, compact, elastic, flexible, rigid or obstinate, and viscous characters. Newton's character he places under the head of rigid or obstinate, and his theory of colors Goethe pronounces to be a petrified aperçu.
Newton's assertion of his theory and his unwavering adherence to it to the end of his life Goethe ascribes straight off to moral obliquity on Newton's part. In the heat of our discussion, he says, we have even ascribed to him a certain dishonesty. Man, he says, is subject to error, but when errors form a series, which is followed pertinaciously, the erring individual becomes false to himself and to others. Nevertheless, reason and conscience will not yield their rights. We may belie them, but they are not deceived. It is not too much to say that, the more moral and rational a man is, the greater will be his tendency to lie when he falls into error, and the vaster will be that error when he makes up his mind to persist in it.
This is all intended to throw light upon Newton, but, when Goethe passes from Newton himself to his followers, the small amount of reserve which he exhibited when dealing with the master entirely disappears. He mocks their blunders as having not even the merit of originality. He heaps scorn on Newton's imitators. The expression of even a truth, he says, loses grace in repetition, while the repetition of a blunder is impertinent and ridiculous. To liberate one's self from an error is difficult, sometimes indeed impossible for even the strongest and most gifted minds. But to take up the error of another, and persist in it with stiff-necked obstinacy, is a proof of poor qualities. The obstinacy of a man of originality when he errs may make us angry, but the stupidity of the copyist irritates and renders us miserable. And, if in our strife with Newton we have sometimes passed the bounds of moderation, the whole blame is to be laid upon the school of which Newton was the head, whose incompetence is proportional to its arrogance, whose laziness is proportional to its self-sufficiency, and
- ↑ I have rendered Goethe's "gute Wille" by good will; his "Wollen," which he contrasts with "Wille," I have rendered by strong will.
