Polarity

Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

https://archive.org/details/johann-wolfgang-von-goethe-scientific-studies

 

In breathing, grace may two-fold be.
We breathe air in, we set it free.
The in-breath binds, the out unwinds
And thus, with marvels, life entwines.
Then thanks to God when we are pressed
And thank Him when he gives us rest.
— Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

“Two souls, alas! reside within my breast,/and each
is eager for a separation:/in throes of coarse desire, one grips/the earth with
all its senses;/the other struggles from the dust/to rise to high ancestral spheres”
– Faust, Part I:

” Two needs arise in us when we observe nature: to gain complete knowledge of the phenomena themselves, and then to make them our own by reflection upon them. Completeness is a product of order, order demands method, and method makes it easier to perceive the concept. When we are able to survey an object in every detail, grasp it correctly, and reproduce it in our mind’s eye, we can say that we have an intuitive perception of it in the truest and highest sense. We can say that it belongs to us, that we have attained a certain mastery of it. And thus the particular always leads us to the general, the general to the particular. The two combine their effects in every observation, in every dis- course.

We will begin with some general notions.
Duality of the phenomenon as opposites:
We and the objects
Light and dark
Body and soul
Two souls
Spirit and matter
God and world
Thought and extension
Ideal and real
Sensuality and reason
Fantasy and practical thought
Being and yearning
Two halves of the body
Right and left Breathing,
Physical experiment: Magnet.

Our ancestors admired the economy of nature. She was thought to have a practical character, inclined to do much with small means where others produce little with great means. As mere mortals, we stand even more in admiration of the skill with which she is able to produce the widest variety of things while restricted to only a few basic principles.

To do this she uses the principle of life, with its inherent potential to work with the simplest phenomenon and diversify it by intensification into the most infinite and varied forms.

Whatever appears in the world must divide if it is to appear at all. What has been divided seeks itself again, can return to itself and reunite. This happens in a lower sense when it merely intermingles with its opposite, combines with it; here the phenomenon is nullified or at least neutralized. However, the union may occur in a higher sense if what has been divided is first intensified; then in the union of the intensified halves it will produce a third thing, something new, higher, unexpected.

Other quotes by Goethe with notes and commentary by the editors:

Page xiv: Unlike Darwin’s evolutionary view, Goethe’s is non-linear; it does not begin at some undetermined point in the past and simply continue changing into the future. Goethe’s view that what evolves is timeless implies an evolution toward a state of perfection. Perfection and fully formed are common phrases in his scientific vocabulary. Here he means the most general and least restricted reflection of the idea within the individual phenomenon: perfection is the goal of intensification. Yet this perfection is not static, not fixed. Driven by inner forces and outer environment, it changes in a spiraling cycle. The six steps from seed to blossom and fruit lead back to the seed again; the six steps from pure red through blue and green to yellow lead back to pure red. Goethe even describes weather as the result of a regular helical ripple in the earth’s atmosphere. This process goes on continually in nature, modified by countless variations in circumstance, so that the manifold world of visible nature arises before us. This spiral development in nature, which never ceases long enough for us to fix it physically, gives rise not only to intensification and nullification, but also to a related dynamic which Goethe called the second great driving force of nature: polarity.

… The “organ of perception” applied in Linnaeus was polar thinking, for Linnaean plant taxonomy is organized on the principle of polarity
(particularly the one between male and female). Goethe found the application of Linnaeus’ botanical terminology unsatisfactory, especially
in regard to the so-called “characterless” plants. But the underlying insight that natural processes arise from interaction between opposites
helped Goethe grasp fluid events in nature, allowing him to express its ineffable language through ” a set of symbols . . . which we may apply
to like events as a metaphor, a closely related expression, a precisely suited word” (Preface to Theory of Color).

The concept of polarity served Goethe well throughout his scientific research. The most striking example is found in Theory of Color, where
the polarities of light and dark work in matter to create the array of colors in Goethe’s color wheel: light seen through darkness yields yellow
and orange (e.g., the sun seen through haze), while darkness seen through light produces blue and violet (e.g., the darkness of space seen
through the light-filled atmosphere during day).

Goethe even states that the contrast between light and dark allows us to see things in general. Elsewhere, we find this interplay of polarities in the expansion and contraction of leaf forms and vertebrae metamorphosis, the beat of music, the diastole and systole of the heart, inhaling and exhaling, acidification and deacidification. The magnet was used as an example of this principle; it was both a symbol for polarity and a source of descriptive terminology.

Goethe’s attention to terminology was largely centered on the proper use of such symbolic references. In his Maxims and Reflections Goethe
writes: “It is true symbolism when the particular represents the more general, not as dream and shadow, but as the living, present revelation
of the unfathomable.” He was greatly concerned lest the reader of his works lose sight of the phenomenon in all its complexity, and frequently expressed the fear that the abstraction would replace the phenomenon:

“How difficult it is . . .to refrain from replacing the thing with its sign, to keep the object alive before us instead of killing it with the word”
(Theory of Color, §754). Here it is useful to recall that the word symbol is related to the Greek verb symballein, which means to draw together, to unite. It is the scientist’s task to find such symbols, for he is dealing with isolated events in living nature which yield their secrets only when properly arranged and presented. Goethe was extremely careful to avoid abstract diagrams, theoretical conclusions, and mathematical formulations. Instead, he viewed his work as similar to a playwright’s, relying on a setting and the presence of actors to make it come alive. The illustrations in Theory of Color, for instance, are objects for experimentation rather than schematic explanations; Goethe laments that he is unable to accompany his writing with even more vivid experimental demonstrations, and constantly reminds us that the reader himself must supply the imaginative power to penetrate the phenomena Goethe has arranged and described.

Page 5 : An equally important measure of progress in Goethean science is the degree of self-development in the scientist. Today this might seem a strange point to consider; the abstract mathematical approach now synonymous with science has intentionally removed the character of the scientist from science. But Goethe realized that proper scientific work should bring a change in the scientist himself, especially in his
mode of perception, and that this change then affected the practice of science. Goethe’s standards were high: he demanded that the scientist
develop new organs of perception to participate in natural processes actively, objectively, and imaginatively. He described his own imagi
native gift in his review of Purkinje’s Sight from a Subjective Standpoint (1824):

“When I closed my eyes and lowered my head, I could imagine a flower in the center of my visual-sense. Its original form never stayed for a moment; it unfolded, and from within it new flowers continuously developed with colored petals or green leaves. These were no natural flowers; they were fantasy flowers, but as regular as rosettes carved by a sculptor. . . . Here the appearance of an afterimage, memory, creative imagination, concept, and idea all work simultaneously, revealing themselves through the unique vitality of the visual organ in complete freedom and without intention or direction.”

On a somewhat higher level this inner activity turns into intuitive perception, the bridge between empirical phenomena and the archetype.
It requires intense schooling of the perceptive organs and imagination to become a worthy participant in the creative processes of nature (see
“Judgment through Intuitive Perception”).

If exact schooling of the imagination is necessary for science, it is equally so for literature; Goethe’s poetic accomplishments are of a piece
with his scientific achievements. This may explain why the creator of Faust and Wilhelm Meister was surprised by the accusations of dilettantism from his scientific readers and the disapproval from his literary audience. Whether in nature or the human heart, the language of symbol, archetype, change and polarity remains ever the same. His critics had overlooked this unity in vision, and in his essay on the response to his Metamorphosis of Plants Goethe reminds us of this: “They forgot that science arose from poetry, and did not see that when times change the two can meet again on a higher level as friends.”

Page 6:
“The tendency toward a form of pantheism is apparent in the thought that what meets us in the world springs from an unfathomable, limitless, humorous, self-contradictory being. It may be considered a game in deadly earnest. The missing capstone is the perception of the two great driving forces in all nature: the concepts of polarity and intensification, the former a property of matter insofar as we think of it as material, the latter insofar as we think of it as spiritual. Polarity is a state of constant attraction and repulsion, while intensification is a state of ever-striving ascent. Since, however, matter can never exist and act without spirit, nor spirit without matter, matter is also capable of undergoing intensification, and spirit cannot be denied its attraction and repulsion. Similarly, the capacity to think is given only to someone who has made sufficient divisions to bring about a union, and who has united sufficiently to seek further divisions.”

Page 267:
“Considered as a whole, color becomes specific when it belongs to one of two sides. It represents an opposition we may call a polarity;
” + ” and “- ” will serve to designate the poles.

The qualities on either side do not cancel one another when the opposites are mixed. If brought to a point of balance where neither side is particularly noticeable, the mixture will acquire a new specific quality for the eye; it will appear as a unity without a trace of combination. We call this unity green.

Here, opposite phenomena from the same source do not cancel one another when brought together, but join in a third phenomenon
which we note with pleasure, a phenomenon which hints at an accord. A more perfect quality has yet to emerge, however.

Page 275: “Electricity has its own peculiarities. We know nothing of electricity’s essence, for it is neutral. To us it is nothing, a zero, a zero
point, a neutral point, but one present in every corporeal substance, a point of origin for a double phenomenon which will emerge at the least
provocation and appear only as it disappears again. The conditions under which this appearance occurs are endlessly varied, and depend on
the character of the particular bodies involved. From the grossest mechanical friction between altogether different bodies to the subtlest
proximity of two similar bodies only slightly unalike in quality, the phenomenon is present and active, even striking and powerful. Its definition and form are such that we properly and naturally apply the formulas of polarity, plus and minus, in the terms north and south, glass and resin. ”

Page 278: “Scientists have obviously felt that it would be necessary and suitable to use a figurative language in which the basic sign expresses
the phenomenon itself, for the formula of polarity has been borrowed from magnetism and extended to electricity, etc. The concepts of plus
and minus, which represent this formula, have found suitable application to many a phenomenon. Even the musician, apparently unconcerned with other fields, has been led by nature to express the principal difference between keys as major and minor.

We, too, have long wished to introduce the term polarity into the theory of color, and the present work will show our justification and purpose in doing so. Later we may have an opportunity to link the elementary phenomena of nature in our own way by using this approach,
this symbolism always accompanied by the intuitive perception belonging to it. Thus we will be able to clarify and define more adequately
the general indications given here.”