Goethe's Theory of Colours · Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
333.
If again we cut a long horizontal opening in the middle of a piece of pasteboard, fastened on the prism, and then cause the sun-light to pass through it, we shall accomplish the complete union of the yellow border with the blue edge upon the light, and only see yellow-red, green and violet. The details of this are further entered into in the description of the plates. 334 (217). The prismatic appearance is thus by no means complete and final when the luminous image emerges from the prism. It is then only that we perceive its elements in contrast; for as it increases these contrasting elements unite, and are at last intimately joined. The section of this phenomenon arrested on a plane surface is different at every degree of distance from the prism; so that the notion of an immutable series of colours, or of a pervading similar proportion between them, cannot be a question for a moment. [1] Plate 4. fig. 1. [2] Plate 4. fig. 2.
Text from Project Gutenberg, public domain in the United States.