Experiments and Considerations Touching Colours (1664) eBook

This eBook from the Gutenberg Project consists of approximately 260 pages of information about Experiments and Considerations Touching Colours (1664).

Experiments and Considerations Touching Colours (1664) eBook

This eBook from the Gutenberg Project consists of approximately 260 pages of information about Experiments and Considerations Touching Colours (1664).
shall shew anon to be Producible, barely by such another change in Black Horn? and yet this so easily acquir’d Whiteness seems to be as truly its Colour as the Blackness was before, and at least is more Permanent than the Greenness of Leaves, the Redness of Roses, and, in short, than the Genuine Colours of the most part of Nature’s Productions.  It may indeed be further Objected, that according as the Sun or other Luminous Body changes place, these Emphatical Colours alter or vanish.  But not to repeat what I have just now said, I shall add, that if a piece of Cloath in a Drapers Shop (in such the Light being seldome Primary) be variously Folded, it will appear of differing Colours, as the Parts happen to be more Illuminated or more Shaded, and if you stretch it Flat, it will commonly exhibit some one Uniform Colour, and yet these are not wont to be reputed Emphatical, so that the Difference seems to be chiefly this, that in the Case of the Rain-bow, and the like, the Position of the Luminary Varies the Colour, and in the Cloath I have been mentioning, the Position of the Object does it.  Nor am I forward to allow that in all Cases the Apparition of Emphatical Colours requires a Determinate position of the Eye, for if Men will have the Whiteness of Froth Emphatical, you know what we have already Inferr’d from thence.  Besides, the Sun-beams trajected through a Triangular Glass, after the manner lately mention’d, will, upon the Body that Terminates them, Paint a Rain-bow, that may be seen whether the Eye be plac’d on the Right Hand of it or the Left, or Above or Beneath it, or Before or Behind it; and though there may appear some Little Variation in the Colours of the Rain-bow, beheld from Differing parts of the Room, yet such a Diversity may be also observ’d by an Attentive Eye in Real Colours, look’d upon under the like Circumstances, Nor will it follow, that because there remains no Footsteps of the Colour upon the Object, when the Prism is Remov’d, that therefore the Colour was not Real, since the Light was truly Modify’d by the Refraction and Reflection it Suffer’d in its Trajection through the Prism; and the Object in our case serv’d for a Specular Body, to Reflect that Colour to the Eye.  And that you may not be Startled, Pyrophilus, that I should Venture to say, that a Rough and Coiour’d Object may serve for a Speculum to Reflect the Artificial Rain-bow I have been mentioning, consider what usually happens in Darkned Rooms, where a Wall, or other Body conveniently Situated within, may so Reflect the Colours of Bodies, without the Room, that they may very clearly be Discern’d and Distinguish’d, and yet ’tis taken for granted, that the Colours seen in a Darkned Room, though they leave no Traces of themselves upon the Wall or Body that Receives them, are the True Colours of the External Objects, together with which the Colours of the Images are Mov’d or do Rest.  And the Errour is not in the Eye, whose Office is only to perceive the Appearances of
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Experiments and Considerations Touching Colours (1664) from Project Gutenberg. Public domain.