Elements of Physiophilosophy

by Lorenz Oken

364. There is nothing visible but colour, but the coloured matter. The Non-corporeal itself is invisible. Darkness is the cause of all visibility. Were there no darkness, there would be no world for the eye. Colours are only illuminated darkness.

365. In the limit between Light and Dark there is neither White nor Black, but their possible mediate conditions, or the proper colours, the material tensions of æther. If the shadow-line of light be viewed under a magnifying glass, colours will be seen to reside in it. They are invisible only before on account of their minuteness. The prism and the lens do nothing else than magnify the shadow-line of light. They only show the colours that already exist therein, but do not create them.

366. There is properly only one colour between White and Black; it is the transmission of light into matter generally. If we look through a prism with the refracting angle presented downwards, at an horizontal fissure in the shutter of a dark chamber, the red colour is then exhibited upon the upper and lower borders of the spectrum so formed within the eye; thus, in both instances, where the Dark is above and the White beneath, as also where the latter is above and the former beneath, as on the inferior border of the opening. Upon the lower border of the upper Red, and thus in the Clare, Yellow appears, which is consequently a mixture of Red and White, as seen through the thinner part of the prism. Yellow is thus brighter Red. Upon the upper border of the lower Red, thus also in the Clare, Blue appears, which is consequently a mixture also of Red and White, but the latter seen through the thicker part of the prism. Blue is thus offuscated Red. If Yellow and Blue be mixed, Green then originates. There can be therefore only four colours, whereof the Red is a mixture of Black and White, Yellow of Red and White, Blue of Red and Black, Green of Blue and Yellow. The first three are simple or mixed colours, the last a compound colour or a medley. These colours are parallel to the gradations in nature, or the latter are none other than the materializations of colours or the gradations of light. All other colours must be contained in the Red; it must serve as the basis or groundwork of all; it must be the noblest, most total, fullest and purest colour. This colour is the first position of the æther as matter, and thus of fire. Fire-colour is the first-born, the noblest, highest, fullest, purest; it is the ætherial, cosmic colour. In fire the light is offuscated by gravity, and thereby coloured.

367. The light is not, however, perfected by its position as fire, but is posited also terrestrially. There are therefore terrestrial colours also.

368. There can be only three terrestrial colours, neither more nor less; for there are only three different material or offuscated positions of light.

369. The first terrestrial offuscation of light is the air. The colour of the air is thus second in the rank of colours. As the fire-colour plays the chief part in the cosmic and in all colours, so does the air-colour among the terrestrial. It is the highest colour of the planet.

370. The second offuscation of light is water. The colour of water is the third colour.

371. The third offuscation of light is the earth; and this colour is the last, the most ignoble. The colours part into two series, the cosmic or solar, and the terrestrial or planetary. The cosmic is the Red. The first terrestrial is Blue. The second is Green. The third is Yellow. Red alone is worth as much as all the three others taken together. It is the identification of all numbers. Green is merely their synthesis, the terrestrial, finite totality.

372. The genesis of colours is thus the genesis of the elements, or that of matter. It cannot be otherwise; for the becoming of matter is verily an offuscation of light, a coloration. Colour agrees essentially with the elements, and is itself nothing different from element. Fire is in its essence red, as being the impartient of light and heat; air is in its essence nothing else than the blue æther by virtue of its being gaseous; water is the green æther, earth the yellow. If the æther is tensed, it then becomes red or fire; if it attains its blue stage, it becomes air; at the green stage, water, upon the yellow, earth.

373. The elements are only gradations of light, colours. They have therefore been formed according to the laws of light; for colours are without doubt the legitimate developments of light.