Having thus established the connexion of the two poles of the colour-scale with the spherical and radial structure of space, we are now able to express the Goethean ur-phenomenon in a more dynamic way as follows: On the one hand, we see the blue of the heavens emerging when levity is drawn down by gravity from its primal invisibility into visible, spherical manifestation. In the yellow of the sunlight, on the other hand, we see gravity, under the influence of the sun's levity, gleaming up radially into visibility. The aspect of the two colour-poles which thus arises before us prompts us to replace Goethe's 'lightened Dark' by Earthward-dawning-Levity, and his 'darkened Light' by Heavenward-raying-Gravity.
We have now to show that this picture of the dynamic relationship which underlies the appearance of the colour-polarity in the sky is valid also for other cases which are instances of the ur-phenomenon of the generation of colour in Goethe's sense, but seem not to lend themselves to the same cosmic interpretation. Such a case is the appearance of yellow and blue when we look through a clouded transparent medium towards a source of light or to a black background. There is no special difficulty here in bringing the appearance of yellow into line with its macrotelluric counterpart, but the appearance of blue requires some consideration.
We have seen that a corporeal surface appears as black if light striking it is totally absorbed by it. Thus, wherever our eye is met by the colour black, our visual ray is engaged in a process whereby light disappears from physical space. Now we need only bring this process into consciousness - as we have tried to do before in similar instances - to realize that what happens here to the visual ray is something similar to what it undergoes when it is directed from the earth into cosmic space.
Note, in this respect, the principle of the mirror as another instance of the fact that the interplay between light and an illumined surface can have on the visual ray an effect similar to that of external space. For the optical processes which occur on the surface of a mirror are such that, whilst taking place on a two-dimensional plane, they evoke in our consciousness pictures of exactly the same nature as if we were looking through the mirror into the space behind it.
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The value of our picture of the colour-polarity is shown further if we observe how natural phenomena based on the same kind of polarity in other realms of nature fit in with it. We remember that one of Goethe's starting-points in his investigation of the riddle of colour was the observation that of the totality of colours one part is experienced as 'warm' and the other as 'cold'. Now we can go further and say that the colours of the spherical pole are experienced as cold, those of the radial pole as warm. This corresponds precisely to the polarity of snow-formation and volcanic activity. The former, being the spherically directed process, requires physically low temperatures; the latter, being the radially directed process, requires high temperatures. Here, once more, we see with what objectivity the human senses register the facts of the outer world.
Another realm of phenomena based on a similar polar order is that of electricity. When we studied the negative and positive poles of the vacuum tube, with regard to the polar distribution of radius and sphere, our attention was drawn to the colours appearing on the two electrodes - red at the (positive) anode, blue at the (negative) cathode. Again we find a coincidence with the natural order of the colours.
Note how the qualitative dynamic method employed here brings into direct view the relationship between light and electricity, while it precludes the mistake of tracing light processes to those of electricity, as modern science does. Nor are electric processes 'explained' from this point of view merely as variations of light processes. Rather is the relation between light and electricity seen to be based on the fact that all polarities arising perceptibly in nature are creations of the same primeval polarity, that of Levity and Gravity. The interplay of Levity and Gravity can take on many different forms which are distinguished essentially by differences in cosmic age. Thus the colour-polarity in its primal form, made manifest by the heavens, differs as much from the corresponding polarity shown by the vacuum tube, as does the lightning in the heights from the electric spark.
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With the aid of what we have learnt here concerning outer light-processes we shall turn once more to the activity of our own inner light.