[...] Well
Sir
, what I now am going to state, I affirm upon my honour, my conscience and my oath to be exactly true. In the year 1830, as I was going to publish
in latin
the same
treatise
, which in German accompanies this letter, I went to Dr.
Seebeck
, of the
Berlin academy
, who is universally admitted to be the first natural philosopher (in the English sense of the word meaning Physiker) of
Germany
, he is the discoverer of
thermo-electricity
, and of several physical truths. I questioned him on his opinion on the controversy between
Goethe
and
Newton
: he was extremely cautious, made me promise that I should not print and publish any thing of what he might say and at last being hard press'd by me, he confessed that in deed
Goethe
was perfectly right and
Newton
wrong
; but that he had no business to tell the world so. - He died since, the
old coward
. - [...]