If we were to add two other qualifying terms to each of these four, as thus—red-yellow, and yellow-red, red-blue and blue-red, yellow-green and green-yellow, blue-green and green-blue,[1] we should express the gradations of the chromatic circle with sufficient distinctness; and if we were to add the designations of light and dark, and again define, in some measure, the degree of purity or its opposite by the monosyllables black, white, grey, brown, we should have a tolerably sufficient range of expressions to describe the ordinary appearances presented to us, without troubling ourselves whether they were produced dynamically or atomically.
The specific and proper terms in use might, however, still be conveniently employed, and we have thus made use of the words orange and violet. We have in like manner employed the word "purpur" to designate a pure central red, because the secretion of the murex or "purpura" is to be carried to the highest point of culmination by the action of the sun-light on fine linen saturated with the juice.
[1] This description is suffered to remain because it accounts for the terminology employed throughout.—T.