"Göthe not only adopted and strenuously maintained the opinion that the Newtonian theory was false, but he framed a system of his own to explain the phenomena of colour. ...Göthe's views are, in fact, little different from those of Aristotle and Antonio de Dominis though more completely and systematically developed. ...it is not difficult to point out the peculiarities in Göthe's intellectual character which led to his singularly unphilosophical views on this subject. ...[H]e appears, like many persons in whom the poetical imagination is very active, to have been destitute of the talent and the habit of geometrical thought. In all probability, he never apprehended clearly and steadily those relations on which the Newtonian doctrine depends. ...[P]robably ...he had conceived the "composition" of colours in some way altogether different from that which Newton understands by composition. What Göthe expected to see, we cannot clearly collect; but we know... his intention of experimenting with a prism arose from his speculations on the rules of colouring in pictures; and we can easily see that any notion of the composition of colours which such researches would suggest, would require to be laid aside before he could understand Newton's theory of the composition of light."