9. Colour introduces a new effect, as compared with white light. By a measured alternation of the different colours, we gain a new pleasure, which has all the distinguishing peculiarities of the pleasure of light and shade. The decomposition of the solar ray into certain primary colours, in fixed proportions, is an exact key to the harmony of colouring, or to the alternation most agreeable to the mind.

The

We commonly speak of the different colours as having characteristic effects; blue and green are reckoned mild or soft; red is fiery, pungent, or exciting. The eye when fatigued with the glare of sunshine, is said to find repose in the verdure of the fields. But these allegations cannot be maintained in an absolute sense. Colour, like all other things, operates in accordance with the principle of Relativity. The effect of any single colour is due to the transition from others felt previously. If red were the one universal tint, we should never have recognized colour at all; we should have spoken only of light and dark. The effects attributed to redness are due to its contrast with the prevailing tints about us. Next to white light and shades of dull grey, we are familiarized to blue and green. balance is usually in favour of the blue end of the spectrum, and hence the occurrence of red is a lively stimulation. If the proportions were reversed in nature; if red and yellow took the place of blue and green, these last would be the exciting colours: they would have the freshness of rarity and novelty. The pleasure of newly-discovered shades of colour, as the mauve and magenta dyes, has no foundation. but novelty and contrast. The variegated aspects of the fields and gardens in the bloom of vegetation, have more beauty than the unbalanced verdure of the leaf. The diffusion of red and yellow supplies the wanting ingredients of the picture. The colours of sunrise and sunset are the scenic splendours of the sky.

10. Artificial lights usually fail somewhat in the proportions of white light, and, therefore, have the pungency of an unbalanced colour. The flame of a fire is an agreeable stimu

lation; the intensity does not amount to a painful excess. The light of a lamp arrests and detains the eye; the fresh sensibility of childhood is delighted with the effect, and soon learns the voluntary movements for following it when shifted about.

11. There remains to be noticed the sensation of lustre. The lustrous is opposed to the dull. The pleasure of lustre is greater than the pleasure of colour alone.

The most characteristic effect of lustrous bodies is the sparkle, or the occurrence of bright spots in the midst of comparative darkness-a marked case of light and shade. This is a combination highly favourable to the agreeable stimulus of light. Lustrous bodies have a mirror surface, and reflect the sun's rays in beams; these, starting out at points, are in strong contrast to the remaining surface.

The highest beauty of visible objects is obtained by lustre. The precious gems are recommended by it. The finer woods yield it by polish and varnish. The painter's colours are naturally dead, and he superadds the transparent film. This property redeems the privation of colour, as in the lustrous. black. The green leaf is often adorned by it, through the addition of moisture. Possibly much of the refreshing influence of greenness in vegetation is due to lustrous greenness. Animal tissues present the effect in a high degree. Ivory, mother of pearl, bone, silk, and wool are of the class of brilliant or glittering substances. The human skin is a combination of richness of colouring with lustre. The hair is beautiful in a great measure from its brilliancy. The eye is perhaps the finest example; the deep black of the choroid, and the colours of the iris, are liquified by the transparency of the humours.

12. We have next to deal with the complex sensations of sight, those resulting from the combination of optical effect with the feelings of movement arising out of the muscles of the eyeball. As in the case of Touch, this combination is necessary as a basis of those perceptions of the external world that are associated with sight-Externality, Motion, Form,

VISIBLE MOVEMENTS.

Distance, Size, Solidity, and relative Position.

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Mere light

and colour will not suffice to found these perceptions upon; as already maintained, in the exposition of Muscularity and of Touch, it is necessary to refer them to the moving apparatus of the eye and of the body generally.

13. Visible Movements. One of the earliest acquired of our voluntary actions is the power of following a moving object by the sight. Supposing our gaze arrested by a strong light, as a candle-flame, the shifting of the candle would draw the eyes after it, partly through their own movement, and partly by the rotation of the head. The consequence is a complex sensation of light and movement, just as the sensation of a weight depressing the hand is a sensation of touch and movement. If the flame moves to the right, the right muscles are engaged in following it; if to the left, the left muscles, and so on; and thus we have several distinct combinations of light and muscular impression, marking distinctness of direction, and never confounded with one another.

Motion, instead of continuing in one direction, may change its direction, and take a course crooked or curved. This brings into play new muscles and combinations, and leaves behind a different trace of muscular action. The right muscles of the eye may have to act along with the superior muscles, and at a shifting rate. This gives an oblique and slanting direction, which we can ever afterwards identify when the same muscles are similarly brought into operation. We have thus a perfect discrimination of varying directions, through the distinct muscles that they bring into play,

We can with the eye, as with other active organs, discriminate the greater or less continuance of a movement, and thereby estimate Duration in the first instance, and, in the next place, obtain another instrument applicable eventually to estimating Extended Magnitude.

Our muscular sensibility also discriminates rate or velocity of movement. A quick movement excites a different feeling from one that is slow; and we thence acquire graduated sensations, corresponding to degrees of speed, up to a certain

limit of nicety. This estimate of the rate of contraction also indirectly serves as a means of judging of Extension, after we have arrived at the notion of visible Space, as opposed to Succession in Time.

The muscular sensibility of the dead strain, or of Resistance, can scarcely occur in the eye, there being nothing to resist its movements but its own inertia. What is called straining the eye (which happens in close and minute vision) is not the same thing as straining the arms in the support of a heavy weight. Hence of the three primary sensibilities of muscle-Resistance, Continuance, and Speed-two only belong to the ocular muscles. Accordingly the eye, with all its superiority in giving the mind the pictorial array of the extended world, cannot be said to include the fundamental consciousness of the object universe, the sense of Resistance. There is a certain kindred sensibility in the common fact of muscular tension; but it is by association, and not by intrinsic susceptibility, that the power of vision impresses us so strongly with the feeling of the Object world.

While the retina of the eye is receiving one and the same optical impression (in the supposed case of the candle-flame), this may, by movement, be imbedded in a great many different muscular impressions, and may constitute a great variety of pictorial effect. By changing the muscles and by varying their rate of action, we may so change the resulting impressions, that any one motion shall be recognized by us as distinct from every other, while each may be identified on a

recurrence.

Many of the pleasures of Muscular Movement, described in the previous chapter, may be experienced in the spectacle of moving objects. The massive languid feeling of slow movement, the excitement of a rapid pace, the still higher pleasure of a waxing or waning speed, can all be realized through the muscles of the eye and the head. The slow procession, the gallop of a race-horse, the flight of a cannonball, exhibit different varieties of the excitement of motion. In the motion of a projectile, where a rapid horizontal sweep

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is accompanied with a gentle rise and fall, we have one set of muscles quickly moved, and another set in slow varying tension, thereby contributing the still more agreeable effect of increasing and dying motion. While the projectile flies across the field of view, the horizontal motion is uniform, but the pace upwards diminishes, and at last dies away at the highest point; the body then recommences a downward course, slow at first, but accelerating until it reach the ground. Hence the beauty of curves.

The pleasures of moving objects and stirring spectacle count for much in the excitement of human life. They are really pleasures of action; but inasmuch as only a very limited portion of muscle is excited by them, they do not constitute bodily exercise, and are therefore, to all practical intents, passive pleasures, like music or sunshine. Whence dramatic display, the ballet, the circus, the horse race, the spectatorship of games and sports, although engaging the activity of the eye, do not belong properly to our active enjoyments. They may, however, be the means of stimulating the general activity of the frame.

Among the permanent imagery of the intellect, recalled, combined, and dwelt upon in many ways, we are to include visible movements. The flight of a bird is a characteristic that distinguishes one species from another; and the impression left by it is part of our knowledge or recollection of each individual kind. The gallop of a horse is a series of moving pictures, which leave a trace behind them, and are revived as such. The motions that constitute the carriage and expression of an animal or a man, demand particular movements of the eye, in order to take them in and store them up among our permanent notions. All the gestures, modes of action, and changes of feature that emotion inspires, are visible to the eye as an assemblage of movements, and we recognize such movements as marking agreement or difference, among individuals, and in different passions. Many of the aspects of the external world impress themselves upon the moving apparatus of the eye. The surface