ON THE ORIGIN OF THE COLOUR-SENSE.
Throughout the preceding discussion we have accepted the subjective phenomena of colour—that is, our perception of varied hues and the mental emotions excited by them, as ultimate facts needing no explanation. Yet they present certain features well worthy of attention, a brief consideration of which will form a fitting sequel to the present essay.
The perception of colour seems, to the present writer, the most wonderful and the most mysterious of our sensations. Its extreme diversities and exquisite beauties seem out of proportion to the causes that are supposed to have produced them, or the physical needs to which they minister. If we look at pure tints of red, green, blue, and yellow, they appear so absolutely contrasted and unlike each other, that it is almost impossible to believe (what we nevertheless know to be the fact) that the rays of light producing these very distinct sensations differ only in wave-length and rate of vibration; and that there is from one to the other a continuous series and gradation of such vibrating waves. The positive diversity we see in them must then depend upon special adaptations in ourselves; and the question arises—for what purpose have our visual organs and mental perceptions become so highly specialised in this respect?
When the sense of sight was first developed in the animal kingdom, we can hardly doubt that what was perceived was light only, and its more or less complete withdrawal. As the sense became perfected, more delicate gradations of light and shade would be perceived; and there seems no reason why a visual capacity might not have been developed as perfect as our own, or even more so in respect of light and shade, but entirely insensible to differences of colour except in so far as these implied a difference in the quantity of light. The world would in that case appear somewhat as we see it in good stereoscopic photographs; and we all know how exquisitely beautiful such pictures are, and how completely they give us all requisite information as to form, surface-texture, solidity, and distance, and even to some extent as to colour; for almost all colours are distinguishable in a photograph by some differences of tint, and it is quite conceivable that visual organs might exist which would differentiate what we term colour by delicate gradations of some one characteristic neutral tint. Now such a capacity of vision would be simple as compared with that which we actually possess; which, besides distinguishing infinite gradations of the quantity of light, distinguishes also, by a totally distinct set of sensations, gradations of quality, as determined by differences of wave-lengths or rate of vibration. At what grade in animal development this new and more complex sense first began to appear we have no means of determining. The fact that the higher vertebrates, and even some insects, distinguish what are to us diversities of colour, by no means proves that their sensations of colour bear any resemblance whatever to ours. An insect’s capacity to distinguish red from blue or yellow may be (and probably is) due to perceptions of a totally distinct nature, and quite unaccompanied by any of that sense of enjoyment or even of radical distinctness which pure colours excite in us. Mammalia and birds, whose structure and emotions are so similar to our own, do probably receive somewhat similar impressions of colour; but we have no evidence to show that they experience pleasurable emotions from colour itself, when not associated with the satisfaction of their wants or the gratification of their passions.
The primary necessity which led to the development of the sense of colour, was probably the need of distinguishing objects much alike in form and size, but differing in important properties;—such as ripe and unripe, or eatable and poisonous fruits; flowers with honey or without; the sexes of the same or of closely allied species. In most cases the strongest contrast would be the most useful, especially as the colours of the objects to be distinguished would form but minute spots or points when compared with the broad masses of tint of sky, earth, or foliage against which they would be set.
Throughout the long epochs in which the sense of sight was being gradually developed in the higher animals, their visual organs would be mainly subjected to two groups of rays—the green from vegetation, and the blue from the sky. The immense preponderance of these over all other groups of rays would naturally lead the eye to become specially adapted for their perception; and it is quite possible that at first these were the only kinds of light-vibrations which could be perceived at all. When the need for differentiation of colour arose, rays of greater and of smaller wave-lengths would necessarily be made use of to excite the new sensations required; and we can thus understand why green and blue form the central portion of the visible spectrum, and are the colours which are most agreeable to us in large surfaces; while at its two extremities we find yellow, red, and violet—colours which we best appreciate in smaller masses, and when contrasted with the other two, or with light neutral tints. We have here probably the foundations of a natural theory of harmonious colouring, derived from the order in which our colour-sensations have arisen and the nature of the emotions with which the several tints have been always associated. The agreeable and soothing influence of green light may be in part due to the green rays having little heating power; but this can hardly be the chief cause, for the blue and violet, though they contain less heat, are not generally felt to be so cool and sedative. But when we consider how dependent are all the higher animals on vegetation, and that man himself has been developed in the closest relation to it, we shall find, probably, a sufficient explanation. The green mantle with which the earth is overspread caused this one colour to predominate over all others that meet our sight, and to be almost always associated with the satisfaction of human wants. Where the grass is greenest, and vegetation most abundant and varied, there has man always found his most suitable dwelling-place. In such spots hunger and thirst are unknown, and the choicest productions of nature gratify the appetite and please the eye. In the greatest heats of summer, coolness, shade, and moisture are found in the green forest glades; and we can thus understand how our visual apparatus has become especially adapted to receive pleasurable and soothing sensations from this class of rays.
Supposed increase of Colour-perception within the Historical Period.—Some writers believe that our power of distinguishing colours has increased even in historical times. The subject has attracted the attention of German philologists, and I have been furnished by a friend with some notes from a work of the late Lazarus Geiger, entitled, Zur Entwickelungsgeschichte der Menschheit (Stuttgart, 1871). According to this writer it appears that the colour of grass and foliage is never alluded to as a beauty in the Vedas or the Zendavesta, though these productions are continually extolled for other properties. Blue is described by terms denoting sometimes green, sometimes black, showing that it was hardly recognised as a distinct colour. The colour of the sky is never mentioned in the Bible, the Vedas, the Homeric poems, or even in the Koran. The first distinct allusion to it known to Geiger is in an Arabic work of the ninth century. “Hyacinthine locks” are black locks, and Homer calls iron “violet-coloured.” Yellow was often confounded with green; but, along with red, it was one of the earliest colours to receive a distinct name. Aristotle names three colours in the rainbow—red, yellow, and green. Two centuries earlier Xenophanes had described the rainbow as purple, reddish, and yellow. The Pythagoreans admitted four primary colours—white, black, red, and yellow; the Chinese the same, with the addition of green.
Simultaneously with the first publication of this essay in Macmillan’s Magazine, there appeared in the Nineteenth Century an article by Mr. Gladstone on the Colour-sense, chiefly as exhibited in the poems of Homer. He shows that the few colour-terms used by Homer are applied to such different objects that they cannot denote colours only, as we perceive and differentiate them; but seem more applicable to different intensities of light and shade. Thus, to give one example, the word porphureos is applied to clothing, to the rainbow, to blood, to a cloud, to the sea, and to death; and no one meaning will suit all these applications except comparative darkness. In other cases the same thing has many different epithets applied to it according to its different aspects or conditions; and as the colours of objects are generally indicated in ancient writings by comparative rather than by abstract terms,—as wine-colour, fire-colour, bronze-colour, &c.—it becomes still more difficult to determine in any particular case what colour was really meant. Mr. Gladstone’s general conclusion is, that the archaic man had a positive perception only of degrees of light and darkness, and that in Homer’s time he had advanced to the imperfect discrimination of red and yellow, but no further; the green of grass and foliage or the blue of the sky being never once referred to.
These curious facts cannot, however, be held to prove so recent an origin for colour-sensations as they would at first sight appear to do, because we have seen that both flowers and fruits have become diversely coloured in adaptation to the visual powers of insects, birds, and mammals. Red, being a very common colour of ripe fruits which attract birds to devour them and thus distribute their seeds, we may be sure that the contrast of red and green is to them very well marked. It is indeed just possible that birds may have a more advanced development of the colour-sense than mammals, because the teeth of the latter commonly grind up and destroy the seeds of the larger fruits and nuts which they devour, and which are not usually coloured; but the irritating effect of bright colours on some of them does not support this view. It seems most probable therefore that man’s perception of colour in the time of Homer was little if any inferior to what it is now, but that, owing to a variety of causes, no precise nomenclature of colours had become established. One of these causes probably was, that the colours of the objects of most importance, and those which were most frequently referred to in songs and poems, were uncertain and subject to variation. Blood was light or dark red, or when dry, blackish; iron was grey or dark or rusty; bronze was shining or dull; foliage was of all shades of yellow, green, or brown; and horses or cattle had no one distinctive colour. Other objects, as the sea, the sky, and wine, changed in tint according to the light, the time of day, and the mode of viewing them; and thus colour, indicated at first by reference to certain coloured objects, had no fixity. Things which had more definite and purer colours—as certain species of flowers, birds, and insects—were probably too insignificant or too much despised to serve as colour-terms; and even these often vary, either in the same or in allied species, in a manner which would render their use unsuitable. Colour-names, being abstractions, must always have been a late development in language, and their comparative unimportance in an early state of society and of the arts would still further retard their appearance; and this seems quite in accordance with the various facts set forth by Mr. Gladstone and the other writers referred to. The fact that colour-blindness is so prevalent even now, is however an indication that the fully developed colour-sense is not of primary importance to man. If it had been so, natural selection would long ago have eliminated the disease itself, and its tendency to recur would hardly be so strong as it appears to be.
Concluding Remarks on the Colour-sense.—The preceding considerations enable us to comprehend, both why a perception of difference of colour has become developed in the higher animals, and also why colours require to be presented or combined in varying proportions in order to be agreeable to us. But they hardly seem to afford a sufficient explanation, either of the wonderful contrasts and total unlikeness of the sensations produced in us by the chief primary colours, or of the exquisite charm and pleasure we derive from colour itself, as distinguished from variously-coloured objects, in the case of which association of ideas comes into play. It is hardly conceivable that the material uses of colour to animals and to ourselves, required such very distinct and powerfully-contrasted sensations; and it is still less conceivable that a sense of delight in colour per se should have been necessary for our utilization of it.