Goethe wrote Elective Affinities at the age of 60, a publication that he considered his greatest work. [7]

In science, Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (1749-1832) was a German lawyer, poet, painter, statesman, scientist and the world's first human chemist, notable as the "founder of human chemistry" for the publication of his 1809 semi-biographical scientific novella Elective Affinities, a scientific treatise on the origin of love, a publication that he considered, in his own words, his "best book" or greatest work. [1] The following 1827 comment by Goethe, to his associate, German author Johann Eckermann, surmises the retrospect weight of this novella in Goethe's mind: [8]

“The only production of greater extent, in which I am conscious of having labored to set forth a pervading idea, is probably my Elective Affinities.”

In short, wherein affinity A equates to free energy G and elective affinity reaction equates to chemical reaction in modern terms, Goethe pioneered the science of human chemical thermodynamics, two-hundred years ahead of its time.

Education
Goethe’s early education has been described as irregular; he went to no school, and his father rather stimulated than instructed him. [18] Goethe's only formal education occurred took pace from 1765 to 1767, where, at the age of 16, Goethe entered the University of Leipzig, studying the classics, graduating with a degree in law. The bulk of Goethe’s education, however, can best be described as autodidactic in style, or a self-directed type of self-education, a self-taught person.

Chemistry
It is known that Goethe has already begun his studies in chemistry by the age of 19. In 1769, at the age of 20, for example, Goethe was conducting chemical experiments in his attic using a draught-furnace. Books on chemistry and alchemy, according to Goethe’s biographer Heinrich Düntzer, became “almost a craze with him”, though, seeking exact knowledge, he was sometimes made desperate by their strange mystifications. [12] Goethe’s reading of Bavarian alchemist Georg von Welling’s 1735 Opus Mago-Cabalisticum, a sort of religious-chemistry mixture, for instance, led him to the clearer chemistry of Dutch physician and chemist Herman Boerhaave’s 1724 Elements of Chemistry, a book greatly influential to French chemist Antoine Lavoisier and his 1787 Elements of Chemistry. [13] Goethe also studied the works of Swiss physician and chemist Paracelsus. [14]

In 1770, at the University of Strasbourg, Goethe began attending the chemistry courses of French chemist Jacob Spielmann, his first chemistry teacher. He also attended the weekly lectures of German chemist Johann Dobereiner, one of Goethe’s lifelong friends, who taught Goethe about chemical analysis. [17] At some point, Goethe came across Swedish chemist Torbern Bergman's 1775 chemistry textbook A Dissertation on Elective Attractions, which became his core anchor point for developing his theory of human chemical reactions or human elective affinity reactions and human morality based on measurable chemical affinity tendencies. To exemplify this, in 1808, Goethe explained to his friend Riemer that:

“The moral symbols used in the natural sciences were the elective affinities discovered and employed by the great Bergman.”

Goethe continued to study chemistry throughout his life. In 1826, at age 77, for instance, in comment on the paradoxical issue of French chemist Claude Berthollet’s 1799 theory of split affinities, Goethe commented that: "for decades I have been struggling with Berthollet in the matter of affinities." [16]

Opening page of Ch. 10 "Goethe's Affinities" of the 2007 Human Chemistry textbook by Libb Thims, defining Goethe as the "founder" of human chemistry.

Overview
Goethe is also a pioneer of human thermodynamics for his theories on human energies and affinities in relation to human work productivities, the latter of which was determined to be a measure of "free energy" (in 1882). Goethe, along with William James Sidis, both of which who were driven to outline a thermodynamic theory of life, are coincidently both among the top hand-full of people in the world to have estimated IQs of 210+. Goethe, according to English novelist Georgi Eliot, is: [2]

"Germany's greatest man of letters ... and the last true polymath to walk the earth."

Goethe, by way of his 1809 theory of human elective affinities, as found in coded story form in his Elective Affinities, in which, as he wrote to many people, he had not only placed numerous different elements within the text, but that many of these were hidden within it and that past the transparent or non-transparent veils in the novel one may be able to see the ‘truly intended Gestalt’, is truly the all-time greatest mind to have ever walked the face of the earth, beyond that of either Newton, Einstein, or Da Vinci. [3] The genus and logic of Goethe's mind, for instance, who had stated: [7]


is now only beginning to come into light, some 200-years after publication. [4] The logic of Goethe's human affinity theories, for instance, is currently forming the basis of the new beta-stage, science-based pair matching site ReactionMatch.com, situated on the premise of "matching affinities in love the chemical reaction." Noted researchers on Goethe's Elective Affinities include: German science historian Jeremy Adler, who did his 1969 PhD dissertation on the chemists, particularly Swedish chemist Torbern Bergman, affinity reactions, and affinity theory used by Goethe in his novella, and American Germanic studies scholar Astrida Tantillo, author of the 2001 book Goethe's Elective Affinities and the Critics.

Human chemistry

▬▬▬See main: Goethe's human chemistry

Goethe spent a period of over 50 years studying chemistry, human life, and its driving passions. His conclusion on the phenomenon of human life was that human beings are chemical species and that both the work of life and the underlying vicissitudes of relationships, in all varieties, e.g. marriage, friendships, social interactions, etc., are chemical reactions:


In short, using Swedish chemist Torbern Bergman's 1775 chemistry textbook A Dissertation on Elective Attractions, Goethe outlined a novella in which each character is considered as different type of chemical species and each chapter plays out a variation on a different type of elective affinity reaction.

Scientists to have cited Elective Affinities
The following is a list of chemists, chemical engineers, and chemistry historians who have cited Goethe’s 1809 human elective affinity theory:

1969 | Jeremy Adler | PhD dissertation + An Almost Magical Attraction: Goethe’s ‘Elective Affinity’ and the Chemistry of his Time (1987)
1984 | Ilya Prigogine | Order Out of Chaos (pg. 319)
1995 | Jean-Marie Lehn | Supramolecular Chemistry (pg. 2)
2003 | Mi Gyung Kim | Affinity, That Elusive Dream (pgs. 1-2)
2004 | Tominaga Keii | Heterogeneous Kinetics (pgs. 16-17)
2007 | Libb Thims | Human Chemistry (pgs. 371-422)

What is curious in this list (aside from Thims), is the number of people (particularly Prigogine and Keii), knowledgeable about chemistry and in particular chemical thermodynamics, to have seemingly been unmoved by Goethe's theory, discussing it only as a passing amusement?

Goethe's IQ
Goethe, being generally known as polymath of great and varied knowledge, is also regarded as having one of the world's highest IQ. [5]

A discussion of common theories of everything among the five known individuals (Goethe #4) with an IQ of 225 or greater.

Famously, in 1926, psychologist Catharine Cox, assisted by psychologists Lewis M. Terman, Florence L. Goodenaugh, and Kate Gordon, published the results of her studies of 301 ratings of individual case histories of the behavior and performance of 301 eminent young men and women, between 17 and 26 years of age, born 1450 to 1850, prepared from 1,500 biographical sources, reported as estimated intelligence quotients based on The Stanford Revision of the Binet-Simon Intelligence Scale, and corrected for regression to the mean, in her book Early Mental Traits of Three Hundred Geniuses. The following quote by Cox summarizes the general view of Goethe's IQ:

“One rater (M) has scored on the basis of the record of Goethe’s youth an IQ of 225 … Goethe’s true IQ may in the history of mankind have been equaled in a few instances; one may well wonder whether it has ever been exceeded.”

The result of Cox's studied was that Goethe was assigned the highest intelligence quotient of all geniuses with a ceiling IQ value of 210. [6]

Videos
The following are videos related to or about Goethe. The third of which discusses the modern-day equation thermodynamics affinity equation according to which the vicissitudes, formations, and dissolutions of friendships, working relationships, and intimate relationships are determined by the measure of the affinity A of the reaction or process; the latter quantifications of affinity, as A = TdS – dH, in terms of entropy S, enthalpy H, and temperature T, were determined later by those as Helmholtz (1882), Nernst (1893), and de Donder (1921). [9]

Goethe's single elective affinity reaction to explain love; and a discussion of the modern equations that quantifies “affinity” via free energy measurements.	A discussion on the world's collective individuals with IQs at or above 200 and a discussion as to who is the smartest person of all time (hypothesis: Goethe).	A note on the essence of life according to German polymath Johann Goethe, in honor of the 200th anniversary of his classic novella Elective Affinities.

Pictures
The following are pictures of Goethe or related images:

Goethe age 15. Photo from American scientist Paul Popenoe’s 1927 article “The Childhood of a Genius: A Review”. [15]	Goethe looking to the side, in his younger days.	Goethe age 38, painted by Swiss-born Italian artist Angelika Kauffmann (1787).	Engraving of Goethe, age 81, at Weimar, by artist Charlotte Amalia Schwerdgeburth (c. 1830).
	Goethe, according to 2009 WorldCat Identities, is among the top seven biggest identities in world literature, along with Bach, Jesus Christ, Lincoln, Mary, Mozart, and Shakespeare. [11]		40ft stack of books at the 2006 Berlin Walk of Ideas with Goethe as the foundation, in commemoration of Gutenberg’s 1445 invention of the movable printing press.

Quotes
The following is quote from Goethe's Faust: [10]

“The human has an unstoppable drive, at least to try, to detect the inmost force, which binds the world, and guides its course.”

References
1. (a) Goethe, Johann. (1809). Elective Affinities. New York: Penguin Classics.
(b) Thims, Libb. (2007). Human Chemistry (Volume One), (preview). Morrisville, NC: LuLu.
(c) Thims, Libb. (2007). Human Chemistry (Volume Two), (preview), (ch. 10: "Goethe's Affinities", pgs. 371-422). Morrisville, NC: LuLu.
2. Eliot, George [1871] (2004). in Gregory Maertz (ed.): Middlemarch. Broadview Press. Note by editor of 2004 edition, Gregory Maertz, (p. 710).
3. Letter from Goethe to friend, composer Karl Friedrich Zelter as discussed in: Tantillo, Astrida, O. (2001). Goethe’s Elective Affinities and the Critics. New York: Camden House.
4. (a) Thims, Libb. (2007). Human Chemistry (Volume One), (preview), (Google books). Morrisville, NC: LuLu.
(b) Thims, Libb. (2007). Human Chemistry (Volume Two), (preview), (Google books). Morrisville, NC: LuLu.
(c) Thims, Libb. (2008). The Human Molecule, (preview). Morrisville, NC: LuLu.
(d) Sterner, Robert W. and Elser, James J. (2002). Ecological Stoichiometry: the Biology of Elements from Molecules to the Biosphere, (chapter one), (pg. 3, 47, 135). Date: Oct. Princeton: Princeton University Press.
5. (a) Estimated IQs of the Greatest Geniuses
(b) Top 10 Geniuses of All Time (according to Buzan's Book Of Genius, 1994).
6. (a) Cox, Catharine, M. (1926). Early Mental Traits of Three Hundred Geniuses (Genetic Studies of Genius Series) (pgs. 155, 163). Stanford Univ Press.
(b) Cox's IQ Estimates of 301 Geniuses - IQ Comparison Site.com
7. Tantillo, Astrida, O. (2001). Goethe’s Elective Affinities and the Critics (pgs. 6, 157, 198). New York: Camden House.
8. (a) ibid, Tantillo (2001), pgs. 154-57.
(b) Eckermann, Johann P. (06 May 1827)
(c) (c) Conversations with Goethe (Gespräche mit Goethe) – Wikipedia.
(d) Johann Peter Eckermann – Wikipedia.
9. 200th Anniversary Elective Affinities T-Shirt – Zazzle.com.
10. (a) Quote from Bayard Taylor’s translation of Faust.
(b) Pogany, Peter. (2006). Rethinking the World (pg. 21). iUniverse.
11. WorldCat Identities – Home.
12. Duntzer, Heinrich. (1884). Life of Goethe, Volumes 1-2 (pgs. 88-89). Estes.
13. (a) Georg von Welling – Wikipedia.
(b) Welling, Georg von. (1735). Opus Mago-Cabalisticum et Theosophicum (English). Publisher.
14. Magnus, Rudolf and Schmid, Gunther. (2004). Goethe as a Scientist (pg. 15-16). Kessinger Publishing.
15. Popenoe, Paul. (1927). “The Childhood of a Genius: A Review” (extract), Journal of Heredity. 18(4): 145-51.
16. Adler, Jeremy. (1990). "Goethe's Use of Chemical Theory in his Elective Affinities" (ch. 18, pgs. 263-79) in Romanticism and the Sciences - edited by Andrew Cunningham and Nicholas Jardine, New York: Cambridge University Press.
17. Hoffmann, Ronald. (1995). The Same and Not the Same (Goethe, pgs. 58, 88-89, 179-80, 243, 256). Cambridge University Press.
18. Browning, Oscar. (1892). Goethe: his Life and Writings. S. Sonnenschein.

External links
● Johann Wolfgang von Goethe – Wikipedia.