Essex County herald. [volume] (Guildhall, Vt.) 1873-1964, 1878-06-14
COlOrs and Sound.

When We speak Of colors or sounds,
we seem for all practical purposes 20
move entirely within the finite This
is red, this is green, this is violet. This
is Q, this is d, this is Z. What can APP
parently be more finite, more definite ?
Bat let us look more closely. Let us
take the seven colors of the rainbow; and
where is the edge of an eye sharp enough
to fix itself On the point where blue
ends and green begins, or where green
ends and yellow begins? We might as
well attempt to put our clumsy fingers
on the point where one millimetre ends
and another begins. We divide color
by seven rough degrees. Even those
seven degrees are of late date in the evo-
luton of our sensuous knowledge. In
common Arabic, as Palgrave tells us,
the names for green, black and brown
are constantly confohhded. In the
Eddd the rainbow is called q three
colored bridge. Xenophanes says that
what people call Iris is a cloud, purple,
red and yellow. Even Aristotle still
speaks of the tri-oolored rainbow, red.
yellow and green, Blue, which seems
to us so definite color, was worked out
of the infnity of colors at comparative
ly late time. There is hardly a book
now in which we do not read of the blue
sky. But in the ancient hymns of the
Veda, 80 full of the dawn, the sun and
the sky, the blue sky is never mentioned;
in the ZenddVesta the blue sky is never
mentioned; in Homer the blue sky is
never mentioned, in the Old and even in
the New Testament, the blue sky is
never mentioned. In the Teutonic Ian
guages blue comes from O root which
originally meant bleak and black. The
Romance languages found no useful
word for blue in Latin, and borrowed
their word from German. It has been
asked whether we should recognize in
this physiological development of our
senses, or only a gradual increase of
words capable Of expressing finer dis
tinctions of light. No one is likely to
contend that the irritation of our organs
of sense, which produce sensation, as
distinguished from perception, were
different thousands of years ago from
what they are now. They are the same
for all men, the same even for certain
animals, for we know that there are
insects which react very strongly against
differences of color. No, we only learn
here again, in very clear manner
that conscious perception is impos-
sible without language. Who would
contend that savages who, as we are told
cannot count beyond three-that is to
say, who have no numerals beyond three
do not receive the sensuous impress
sion of four wheels of a cart? No, in
this evolution of consciousness of color
we see most clearly how perception, as
different from sensation, goes hand in
hand with the evolution of language,
and how slowly every definite concept is
gained out OF an infnitude of indistinct
perceptions. Demokritos knew of four
colors, viz, black and white (Which are
regarded as colors), red and yellow. Are
we to say that he did not see the blue
of the sky because he never called it
blue. but only dark or bright? In
China the number of colors was original
ly FIVE. That number was increased
with the increase of their power of dis
tinguishing and of expressing their dis
tinctions in words; but though we dis
tinguish more and more, the variety Of
colors always stands before us as real
infinite, to be measured, it may be, by
millions of ethereal vibrations in one
second, but unreasonable and indivisi.
BILE even to che keenest eye.-MaT Mil.
Ter, in Contemporary Review.