The famous prize-question also has not been lost sight of during these days.  In order to obtain an empiric foundation for my observations, I have commenced examining the character of the different European nations.  In Link’s Travels I have read a good deal more about Portugal, and shall now pass on to Spain.  I am daily becoming more convinced how much more limited everything appears when such observations are made from within.

Ritter came to see me for a minute, and has, among other things, directed my attention again to the theory of colors.  Herschel’s new discoveries, which have been carried further and extended by our young naturalist, are very beautifully connected with that observation which I have frequently told you of—­that Bolognian phosphorus does not receive any light on the yellow-red side of the spectrum, but certainly does so on the blue-red side.  The physical colors are thereby identified with the chemical colors.  The time and care which I have devoted to this subject give me the greatest advantage in judging of new observations, inasmuch as, in fact, I have thought out some new experiments which will carry the matter further still.  I foresee that I shall this year write at least two or three chapters more in my theory of colors.  I am anxious, some day soon, to show you the latest.

Would you care to come to me on Thursday with Professor Meyer?  Please talk this over with him, and I will then write to him more fully on the subject.  Meanwhile, farewell.

* * * * *

SCHILLER to GOETHE

Weimar, August 18, 1802.

You can never be inactive, and what you call an unproductive mood most other people would consider time fully occupied.  If only some subordinate genius—­one of those very persons residing and presiding at the universities—­would give the finishing touch to your scientific ideas, collect and edit them fairly, and, in this way, preserve them for the world!  For, unfortunately, you yourself will always be putting off this business, because, as I think, what is actually didactic is not a part of your nature.  You are, in reality, very well qualified for being appropriated and plundered by others during your own lifetime, as has already happened to you several times and would happen more frequently still if people understood their own advantage better.

If we had become acquainted with each other half a dozen years earlier than we did, I should have had time to master your scientific investigations; I should perhaps have sustained your inclination to give these important subjects their ultimate shape, and, in any case, should have honestly looked after what belonged to you.

I have lately been reading some notices on the elder Pliny, which have astonished me in regard to what a man can accomplish by putting time to good use.  Compared with him, even Haller was a time-squanderer.  But I am afraid that the immense amount of time he devoted to reading, making quotations and dictating, left him no proper time for independent reflection, and he seems to have applied all the activity of his mind to acquiring knowledge; for on one occasion he called his nephew severely to task for walking up and down the garden without having a book in his hand.