“In the late 1700s,
Goethe devised a
theory of how colors work, to refute
Isaac Newton's theory; except Goethe's relied as much on
poetry as
science, including his whimsical thesis that "colors are the deeds of
light, deeds and sufferings." Not to huff like a
positivist, but that statement has absolutely no
meaning. He also laded his novel
Elective Affinities with the spurious idea that
marriages work like
chemical reactions. That is, if you throw couple AB into contact with couple CD, they all might naturally commit chemical adultery and form new pairs: AB + CD → AD + BC. And this wasn't just implied or a
metaphor. Characters actually discuss this algebraic rearrangement of their lives. Whatever the novel's other strengths especially its depiction of
passion), Goethe would have been better off cutting out the science. Goethe would have been crushed after his
death in 1832 to learn that its science and
philosophy [See:
Goethean philosophy] would soon
disintegrate and that people now read his work strictly for its literary value.”
— Kean (2010), The Case of the Disappearing Spoon; an example of secular delusion par excellence (see: affinities confustion)