The present essay builds off of the key ideas and avenue of inquiry that was presented in the prior one, in which the color-spectrum as conceived in the mode of electromagnetism in the tradition of Newton’s theoretical framework for color was analogized to an evolution of the will. As promised, the program for the present exploration is to sustain a similar comparison for the sake of shedding further light on this sort of evolution, but vis-à-vis the phenomenological color-theory that Goethe advanced rather than the abstract, model-driven one that Newton pioneered and which has become the coin of the realm, so to speak, in most contemporary conceptions of the nature of color. But, again, the purpose of these essays is to present these respective color-theories not to debate their merits, nor to weigh their respective significance as representatives of trends in the history of science and the history of ideas, but rather, in the spirit of Plato’s Republic, to inquire into these empirical phenomena only insofar as they promise to shed light on invisible dimensions of our own psyche and consciousness.1
As indicated above, one fruit of Goethe’s comparatively unknown scientific work was to develop a phenomenological color-theory. Goethe’s color-theory reveals the familiar 7-toned rainbow to be an emergent phenomenon following the marriage a “cool” spectrum with a “warm” one. This is easy to verify in practice provided one has access to a prism and a source of incident light. It can easily be observed that green is not really commensurable with either the warm or the cool colors but constitutes instead the bridge between them. Unlike the colors of the warm spectrum or those of the cool spectrum, which appear in the proper relational conditions between light (Licht) and shade (Finsternis), green only appears when the prism is arranged such that the edges of the two spectra are made to coincide. Hence, it is a “second-order” or “emergent” color and not an elementary one. Both of the warmth and the cool spectra are border phenomena in that light is a necessary but not a sufficient condition for their appearance. Instead, shadow is also necessary. Thus, both the warm and the cool spectra appear on the threshold of encounter between Licht and Finsternis. Light crossing into shadow, or “lightened darkness” generates blue, indigo, and violet—the cool spectrum. Where shadow crosses into light, or “light is darkened,” the warm spectrum appears in its delightful yellow, orange, and red hues. To recapitulate, then, the familiar rainbow is actually a synthesis of two different spectra in the form of a polarity: 3 +3 = 7. Green is the “+” in the above equation. It is the inflection point between cool and warm.
One way that Rudolf Steiner elaborated Goethe’s work on color-theory was to show how the visible color spectrum may be experienced as a ring, not only diagrammatically, but manifestly. Just as green appears where yellow meets blue, so an octavus quid joins red with violet. This connection is phenomenologically intuitive, since in the transition from indigo to violet, a clear element of the light spectrum can be felt to emerge from the deeps of blue. In other words, in the color violet, red is already present as the twilight before daybreak, and the cold spectrum is already reversing and on the way to becoming its opposite. For lack of a better term, let us call this eighth tone “magenta.”
I have presented this rough sketch of Goethe & Steiner’s color-theory in order to explore what light it might shed on the nature and evolution of the will, as it was outlined in an earlier inquiry. At that time, the electromagnetic theory of color was employed as an analogy to show how the will develops through integration of consciousness into its function. The analogy also helped to disclose metamorphoses of will that might otherwise go unrecognized as such. These included “force” or “natural laws,” on the one hand, and “thinking,” or “ideation” on the other. The spectrum of the will’s evolution spans from instinct to resolution. Thus the 7-tones of the moral octave are as follows: instinct, drive, desire, motive, intention, wish, resolution. Given the insights of Goethe and Steiner, we can reorganize the 7 tones into two groups of three with a connecting link. Thus we may find instinct, drive, and desire on one hand and intention, wish, and resolution on the other. I will say a few words about each group and also their relation.
It may be noticed that the first group is an expression of the “darkened light” principle. Moving from instinct to drive to desire is analogous to the transformation of red to orange to yellow. It is an expression of light being less and less occulted by a turbid medium. The sequence of colors in the sunrise spells out this phenomenon. Analogously, consciousness gradually dawns in the will in the transition from instinct to drive to desire. Motive can be seen as the daybreak—the inflection point between night and day—because it is at this stage that self-awareness first crests the will’s horizon. Just as green emerges from the union of the warm spectrum with the cool one, so motive represents the permeation of will with wakefulness.
Whereas in the first group outlined above, consciousness is “dragged down” or “sunken” in will, in the second group, which corresponds to the “cool spectrum,” the will is “drawn up” into consciousness. Intention, wish, and resolution present increasing degrees of translumination of the will with wakefulness. A resolution, for example, represents an impulse for action whose origin is entirely conceptual or ideal. The deed is born from a resolution to perform it. It is something of an antipode to an instinct, which can be conceptually apprehended only after it has already occurred.
Now that we have briefly articulated some key tenets of the analogy above, a question remains as to whether the rainbow of the will can be reversed and bent into a crown. In other words, does the magenta of the Goethe-Steiner color-theory appear somewhere in its will analogue. Let us again revisit the boundaries from the visible spectrum as it was conceived in the last exploration. On the yonder side of one threshold was placed mere force or laws of physics, which is to say, will without consciousness. Beyond the other boundary was to be found pure thought, or ideality without manifestation. Can these two domains be overlaid in a manner analogous to the way in which red and violet, the outer boundaries of the familiar rainbow when it is reversed into a halo, may join to produce magenta?
I believe they can. Magenta may represent perception, which is the necessary correlate to all acts of will. This is certain because no act of will would be possible without any knowledge of the context in which that act is to be performed. I will try to show how perception can be seen as the diametric counterpart of motive just as magenta stands in the same antipodal relation to green on the color-wheel. In will as motive, action and idea move as a piece. If action comes first, the will is operating as desire, drive, or instinct. If idea comes first, the will is operating as intention, wish, or resolution. Perception is the inverse of motive because the former describes the process of bringing together action and idea while the latter describes their process of their separation. Motive decoheres into (1) an outer fact and (2) an inner understanding and of its reason, accessible to recollection. Perception represents the inverse of this process in that force (received via the senses) is conjoined with an idea that renders it intelligible. “Making salt,” it could be called, if physics is compared to sodium and ideality to chloride. Returning to the 3 + 3 = 7 equation, it can now be “dynamized” such that its meaning depends on moving through it. Read from right to left, it symbolises the process of will, or the alchemical sulphur process. Interpreted from left to right, it describes the process of perception which is the alchemical salt process.
For let it be noted that Republic is not, in fact, foremost a manual for preparing the architectonics of a utopian state at all. Instead, the Republic dialogue is an exploration into the proper order of the soul: “For it is no ordinary matter that we are discussing, but the right conduct of life.”[4] That the order of the soul is the proper subject matter of the dialogue is stated explicitly in Book 2, though admittedly it is easy to overlook since it appears early and is followed by a lengthy conceit that does not expressly indicate its import. “Let us,” Socrates suggests, “[in our inquiry after the idea of justice], employ a method such as nearsighted persons should use if bidden to read small letters from a distance…let us first look for its [justice’s] quality in states, and then only examine it also in the individual, looking for the likeness of the greater in the form of the less.”[5]
This was great. I looked into Goethe’s Color Theory in the past but never understood the implications till now. It is very intuitive. Thank you. I’d love to hear more about it.
This explanation of morality, will & color are illuminated brilliantly in these 2 essays. Thank you, Max, for adding much needed clarity as my own understanding of color perception had become a bit “blurred” in a “brain-fogged” mind. Relating color to gradients of consciousness working in the will in the way you have done is wholly engaging and refreshing to the soul.
Magenta as perception makes sense to me. The 1st light seen on the horizon just before the sun rises creates a subtle magenta glow and for me, correlates to an invocation of birth – a birth of a new day and a new perception/ vision which precedes from what was cloaked in the darkness of night. With that in mind & heart, a few Steiner words:
[Natural science of the present day] has the tendency to create a science, to create a view, that gives an understanding of the material world only…We shall be able to realize that within the last few decades a door has opened through which understanding can come to us…
If we can perceive this, we can perceive the whole significance of the new age that is just issuing forth from our own, we can perceive the dawn of a spiritual revelation that is to come within the next few centuries of the life of humanity upon earth; indeed, because humanity has become freer that it was in former times, we shall be able through our own will to progress so as to receive this revelation. – R. Steiner May 1913