Spectrum

“ Truth in education requires that when colors are classified as spectrum colors they shall all be the nearest approach possible to the true spectrum colors, and in the spectrum there are no broken or impure colors. ”

“ But we find suggestions from the spectrum and the spectroscope which may be worth our heeding. The materials with which we have to do in their most brilliant scientific theories seem at first to overwhelm us with their vastness and complexity. ”

“ Those who are at all conversant with that wonderful branch of knowledge known as spectrum analysis are aware how these discoveries have rendered it possible for us to determine in many cases the actual material elements found in the most distant bodies. ”

“ In dwelling upon sound-phenomena, we have the advantage of dealing with phenomena about which Science says she does know something: from a consideration of these known facts we shall be able, slowly but surely, to grasp some of the much less familiar phenomena with which spectrum analysis is especially concerned. ”

“ A spectrum interrupted by bright lines is produced when the light emanates from flames or ignited vapors and gases. 3. A spectrum interrupted by dark lines is produced, when light emanating from a source giving a continuous spectrum, is passed through gaseous or vaporous matter giving spectra of the second order.
Now, it has been found that, when various elements are volatilized in the flame of a lamp, the light gives a spectrum interrupted by bright lines—whose character and position are different for different elements. ”

“ The spectrum is valuable in color study only from the fact that it enables us to establish permanent standard colors from which all colors in nature and the arts may be named and by the combinations of which such colors may be imitated. ”

“ Unless the standard colors in a system of color instruction are the closest possible imitations of corresponding spectrum colors there is no logical relation between such a system and a chart of colors based on the spectrum, because the spectrum does not furnish a complete circuit of colors and its only value is, as before stated, in furnishing a permanent standard on which to found a nomenclature of colors. ”

“ A spectrum may be produced from any source of light, such as sunlight, limelight, the electric light, gaslight, or incandescence electric light, as also from incandescent vapours, or gases; but it is only a solid which is, or is rendered incandescent, that will give us a continuous spectrum, as it is called, that is, a spectrum which is unbroken by gaps of non-luminosity, or sudden change of brightness, throughout its length. ”

“ And any one of these colours may be imitated by painting a card with the two colours which are contiguous to it, in the same proportions as in the spectrum, and whirling them in the same manner. My ingenious friend, Mr. Galton of Birmingham, ascertained in this manner by a set of experiments the following propositions; the truth of which he had preconceived from the above data.
1. Any colour in the prismatic spectrum may be imitated by a mixture of the two colours contiguous to it. ”

“ When they are in an extremely rarefied condition the spectrum of their light consists of a set of sharply-defined bright lines. As the substance approaches a denser condition the spectrum tends to become continuous, either by the lines becoming broader and less defined, or by new lines and bands appearing between them, till the spectrum at length loses all its characteristics and becomes identical with that of solid bodies when raised to the same temperature. ”

“ Unfortunately, that is neither always possible nor always sufficient, and sometimes the mind must run ahead of experiment. I shall only give one example which has always struck me rather forcibly. If I decompose white light, I shall be able to isolate a portion of the spectrum, but however small it may be, it will always be a certain width. ”

“ W the white light which is projected on the spectrum.
Taking all this into consideration, it is evident that when a particular color is presented to us we can affirm that it is perfectly pure, viz., entirely free from white light; or that it contains mingled with it a larger or smaller proportion of this foreign element. This furnishes us with our first clew toward a classification of colors: our pure standard colors are to be those found in the spectrum; the colored light coming from the surfaces of natural objects, or from painted surfaces, we must compare with the tints of the spectrum. ”

“ There is a great difference between the 10-20 of our illustration and the infinitely small which defies thought. The visible spectrum contains an octave of vibrations as real, as distinguishable, as capable of analysis as an octave of notes in the human voice. ”

“ It must be understood that each element gives it own characteristic lines, that these are always in precisely the same position in the spectrum, that no substance produces a line in exactly the same position as another, however near two lines due to different substances may, in some cases, appear ”

“ Every one is acquainted with the spectrum which we see when a ray of sunlight coming through a narrow opening passes through a prism. With the aid of suitable instruments there can also be seen in this spectrum a considerable number of dark cross-lines; and science has shown that these lines are caused by the presence of certain simple bodies or elements, including iron, hydrogen, sodium, etc. When we examine the light of the stars through those instruments, we shall perceive that in their spectrums too the dark lines denoting these elements are present. ”

“ Hence, when one of the stars, say A, is moving toward us, and the other, say D, from us, all the spectral lines will appear double, the lines made by A being displaced toward the blue end of the spectrum and those by B toward the red end. ”

“ As processes of manufacture are improved and new chemical discoveries made, there is good reason to believe that we shall have much more intense colors and hence much better imitations of spectrum colors than are at present possible. ”

“ They were satisfied that there was still something to be found in the old arrangement of negative and positive tones as they were understood before the application of the spectrum turned the brains and sensibilities of men. ”

“ Air XXXV.
viz., ◡_̷◡◡_̷◡_̷◡_̷◡ or ◡_̷◡◡◡_̷◡_̷◡ or ◡_̷◡◡_̷◡◡◡_̷◡.
But sometimes it is difficult, if not impossible, to say whether a line or series of lines is in rising or falling rhythm, or what sort of foot is predominant—in other words, what is the formal metrical pattern. This difficulty is, of course, no fault of the poet's: it lies in the complexity of the phenomena, and is after all a weakness of our power of analysis. In the spectrum blue merges into green, red into yellow, and though we invent names for various tints, others still escape classification. ”

“ Its powers and its principles have been so developed during the century by the discoveries, inventions and investigations of Herschel, Wollaston, Fraunhofer, Bronsen and Kirchoff, Steinheil, Tyndall, Huggins, Draper and others, that spectrum analysis has grown from the separation of light into its colours by the prism of Newton, to what Dr. ”

“ In the case of the colored balls we have no difficulty in making the enumeration, because we ourselves determine what the possibilities shall be. But suppose a case more analogous to those which occur in nature: instead of three colors, let there be in the box all possible colors, we being supposed ignorant of the comparative frequency with which different colors occur in nature, or in the productions of art. How is the list of cases to be made out? Is every distinct shade to count as a color? If so, is the test to be a common eye, or an educated eye—a painter's, for instance? ”

“ We need only shut our eyes and listen to music, to have a conception of a universe with nothing in it except sounds, and ourselves hearing them: and what is easily conceived separately, easily obtains a separate name. But in general our names of sensations denote indiscriminately the sensation and the attribute. Thus, color stands for the sensations of white, red, etc., but also for the quality in the colored object. ”

“ The colors upon a body are different, according to its figure, its shape, and its size. But the sensations of color and what we may here, for brevity, call the sensations of extension, of figure, of distance, have been so often united, felt in conjunction, that the sensation of the color is never experienced without raising the ideas of the extension, the figure, the distance, in such intimate union with it, that they not only cannot be separated, but are actually supposed to be seen. ”

“ Neutrality or grayness, though it is the negation of color, the zero of color, so to speak, must be classed as a color because upon analysis it proves to be a result of color combination or mixture. When I speak, as I shall from time to time, of the neutral as a color, it will be understood that I am speaking of a combination or mixture of colors in which no particular color can be distinguished. I speak of the neutral as a color just as I speak of zero as a number. We use zero as a number though it is no number, and counts for nothing. ”

“ There remains the consideration of Contrast, as a link of association. It is easy to show that both Contiguity and Similarity may enter into the association of contrasts. All contrasts that we are interested in are habitually coupled in language, as light and dark, heat and cold, up and down, life and death. Again contrasts suppose a common genus, that is a generic similarity; at least until we ascend to the highest contrast of all, the subject mind, and the object or extended world. Cold and Hot are grades of the common attribute called Temperature. ”

“ No one, I presume, can recall in imagination a color or an odor with the same distinctness and accuracy with which almost every one can mentally reproduce an image of a straight line or a triangle. To the extent, however, of their capabilities of accuracy, our recollections of colors or of odors may serve as subjects of experimentation, as well as those of lines and spaces, and may yield conclusions which will be true of their external prototypes. ”

“ Even when we disregard differences of intensity and consider simply the possibilities of value and of color, as shown in the general classification of tones according to value and color (Diagram of Values and Colors, p. 137) , we have still too many possibilities to consider, and our choice of tones is determined by accident or habit rather than by clear vision or deliberate preference. We shall find it worth while to limit our range in each experiment to some particular sequence of values and colors, or to some particular combination of sequences. ”

“ No matter what the field of view means, he sees it also as it feels—that is, as a collection of patches of color bounded by lines—the whole forming an optical diagram of whose intrinsic proportions one who is not an artist has hardly a conscious inkling. ”

“ In general we should describe the familiar world as subjective and the scientific world as objective. Take for instance our former example of parallelism, viz. colour in the familiar world and its counterpart electromagnetic wave-length in the scientific world. Here we have little hesitation in describing the waves as objective and the colour as subjective. The wave is the reality—or the nearest we can get to a description of reality; the colour is mere mind-spinning. The beautiful hues which flood our consciousness under stimulation of the waves have no relevance to the objective reality. ”

“ The medium, and the mode in which the impression is conveyed through the medium, seem to be different for different qualities; but the existence of the medium leads to certain necessary conditions or alternatives, which have successively made their appearance in science, in the course of the attempts of men to theorize concerning the principal secondary qualities, sound, light, and heat. ”

“ Representative elements form what may be characterized as mental trains. The elements of a mental train are connected by relations of contiguity, resemblance, and contrast. Association by contiguity depends on the frequency, recency with which the elements have been associated, while resemblance and contrast may be regarded as two or more mental trains of representative elements associated by contiguity, crossing and intersecting in a few points, in other words having some element in common. ”

“ The secondary sensory elements are not images, nor ideas, nor representations, different terms employed for the same state by various writers, the secondary elements of the percept are essentially sensations. Now sensations are qualitatively different from images, ideas or representations. The image of a light does not shine, the idea of a voice does not sound, and the representation of a perfume does not smell. A sensation, or presentation as it is sometimes termed, differs from an image or representation qualitatively, fundamentally. ”

“ Now, though the most remarkable case of the associations among those feelings, is that between colour, and extension and figure, they are all blended by association into one idea; which, though in reality a cluster of ideas, affects us in the same manner as if it were a single idea; an idea, the parts of which we detect by an analysis, which it requires some training to be able to make. ”

“ The sensations which form the elements of all knowledge are received either simultaneously or successively: when several are received simultaneously, as the smell, the taste, the color, the form, etc., of a fruit, their association together constitutes our idea of an object; when received successively, their association makes up the idea of an event. Any thing, then, which favors the associations of synchronous ideas will tend to produce a knowledge of objects, a perception of qualities ”

“ Let us consider first the knowledge of universals by acquaintance. It is obvious, to begin with, that we are acquainted with such universals as white, red, black, sweet, sour, loud, hard, etc., i.e. with qualities which are exemplified in sense-data. When we see a white patch, we are acquainted, in the first instance, with the particular patch; but by seeing many white patches, we easily learn to abstract the whiteness which they all have in common, and in learning to do this we are learning to be acquainted with whiteness. ”