White matter

“ It has become the universal opinion that the world is moving onwards and upwards; yet how few understand why the world is so moving. Men have yet to learn that effects can [101] no more take place without adequate causes in the universe of mind than in the universe of matter. Nowhere out of Swedenborg can we find a description of those spiritual causes which are changing society and revolutionizing the whole world. We, who live in the dawn of the new era, can form, even in our highest states, but a faint conception of its coming glory. ”

“ What matters first of all is to realize that white must be strictly differentiated from light as such, for the function of light is to make visible the material world without itself being visible.
To say that light is invisible, however, does not mean that it is wholly imperceptible. It is difficult to bring the perception of light into consciousness, for naturally our attention, when we look out into light-filled space, is claimed by the objects of the illuminated world, in all their manifold colours and forms. ”

“ It is a very natural question, and one often put by those unconversant with the nature of spiritual intercourse, how it happens that such a man as Swedenborg, sitting quietly in his chair, could see and speak with angels and spirits, and travel through vast spaces in the spiritual world. It is thus: Space and time are attributes of matter alone. Their appearances do, indeed, exist in the spiritual world, but not as the fixed and mensurable things of our material sphere. ”

“ Whilst with increasing density of the air the blue of the sky brightens up and gradually passes over into white, the yellow of the sun gradually darkens and finally gives way to complete absence of light. ”

“ For whiteness is a mean between all Colours, having it self indifferently to them all, so as with equal facility to be tinged with any of them. A red Powder mixed with a little blue, or a blue with a little red, doth not presently lose its Colour, but a white Powder mix'd with any Colour is presently tinged with that Colour, and is equally capable of being tinged with any Colour whatever. It has been shewed also, that as the Sun's Light is mix'd of all sorts of Rays, so its whiteness is a mixture of the Colours of all sorts of Rays ”

“ Now, considering that these grey and dun Colours may be also produced by mixing Whites and Blacks, and by consequence differ from perfect Whites, not in Species of Colours, but only in degree of Luminousness, it is manifest that there is nothing more requisite to make them perfectly white than to increase their Light sufficiently; and, on the contrary, if by increasing their Light they can be brought to perfect Whiteness, it will thence also follow, that they are of the same Species of Colour with the best Whites, and differ from them only in the Quantity of Light. ”

“ Much impressed with the physical discovery that white light is a mixture of all wave-lengths, he is ready to believe the sensation of white a mixed sensation. He says, "White is the sum of all the colors", meaning that the sensation of white is compounded of the sensations of red, orange, yellow, green, blue and violet--which is simply not true. ”

“ Whiteness then consider'd as a Quality in the Object, seems chiefly to depend upon this, That the Superficies of the Body that is call'd White, is Asperated by almost innumerable Small Surfaces, which being of an almost Specular Nature, are also so Plac'd, that some Looking this way, and some that way, they yet Reflect the Rays of Light that fall on them, not towards one another, but outwards towards the Spectators Eye. ”

“ Whereas it will be found that (setting air and the like aside) bodies entirely even in the particles which affect vision are transparent, bodies simply uneven are white; bodies uneven and in a compound yet regular texture are all colours except black; while bodies uneven and in a compound, irregular, and confused texture are black. Here then I have given an example of an Instance Migrating to production or existence in the proposed nature of Whiteness. An Instance Migrating to destruction in the same nature of Whiteness, is froth or snow in dissolution. ”

“ It is a sad thing to think of, that when we put the candle out, and step into bed, we become blacker than the blackest negro that was ever emancipated. But without light there can be no colour, for there is no material, so to speak, from which to manufacture it. White light, as we have said before, is made up of red, blue, and yellow, and it is by the absorption of one or all of these that all tints are formed. ”

“ White is the product of the sum of all the sensations which the mind is capable of perceiving through the eye. When the eye is normal, we have it when all three of the fibers are affected in about the same degree, and in the color-blind when the two remaining fibers are thus affected. Any color, therefore, which contains, besides green, a certain proportion of the other colors (red and violet) —as certain shades of what we call green do—will cause, when presented to such a green-blind individual, the sensation of white of diminished intensity. ”

“ When he thought of color he should not be diverted by living tissue, but ought always to consider electricity. The more charges on the nucleus, the more color there ought to be. Since the first twenty-seven elements are comparatively light and abundant, color in real richness ought to begin at number twenty-eight He closed his eyes and dreamed of ascending scales—oxides running soberly in red and brown and black, sulphides fitting in with dusky gold, chlorides almost prismatic. ”

“ And again if the Wind increase into a Storm, the Water may appear White, especially near the Shore and the Ship, namely because the Rude Agitation Breaks it into Fome or Froth. So much do Whiteness and Blackness depend upon the Disposition of the Superficial parts of a Body to Reflect the Beams of Light Inward or Outward. But that as White Bodies reflect the most Light of any, so there Superficial Particles are, in the Sense newly Deliver'd, of a Specular Nature, I shall now further endeavour to shew both by the making of Specular bodies White, and the making of a White body Specular. ”

“ The white color of various flowers—lilies, roses, and others—is generally produced by a white cellular juice, but may also be due to a white pigment, artholeucine, suspended in the colorless cell-juice. These white flowers would offer most suitable material for researches, if the experimental conversion of colors were undertaken. When undecomposed light is reflected by a body, its color appears to us as white. White, therefore, is no actual color, but simply a union of all colors, or the collective rays of light in an unseparated combination. ”

“ Out of this assertion are satisfied a multitude of effects and observations, as that whiteness and blackness are most incompatible with transparence; that whiteness keepeth light, and blackness stoppeth light, but neither passeth it; that whiteness or blackness are never produced in rainbows, diamonds, crystals, and the like; that white giveth no dye, and black hardly taketh dye; that whiteness seemeth to have an affinity with dryness, and blackness with moisture; that adustion causeth blackness, and calcination whiteness; that flowers are generally of fresh colours, and rarely black, etc. ”

“ White itself is advanced or brought forward, unless indeed white surround a dark object, in which case they retire together. In mixture, white communicates these properties to its tints, and harmonizes in conjunction with, or in opposition to all colours; but lies nearest in series to yellow, and remotest from blue, of which, next to black, it is the most thorough contrast. ”

“ White is a collective effect, whilst black is the antithesis of white and the very negation of colour. The first four are called primary colours, for no human eye ever detected in them two different colours, while all of the other colours contain two or more primary colours. If we mix the following tints of the spectrum, i.e. the following rays of coloured light, we shall produce white light, red and greenish-yellow, orange and Prussian blue, yellow and indigo blue, greenish-yellow and violet. All those pairs of colours that unite to produce white are termed complementary colours. ”

“ There is an ancient doctrine that the azure of the sky is a compound of light and darkness, and some have argued hence that blue is not a primary colour, but a mixture of black and white; but pure or neutral black and white compound in infinite shades, all of which are neutral also, or grey. It is true that a mixture of black and white is of a cool hue, because black is not a primary colour, but a compound of the three primary colours in which blue predominates, a predominance which is rendered more sensible when black is diluted with white. ”

“ Finally, by means of a rotating disk, on which are spread in sectors the colours of the spectrum, we blend together the prismatic colours in the eye itself, and thus produce the impression of whiteness.
Having unravelled the interwoven constituents of white light, we have next to inquire, What part the constitution so revealed enables this agent to play in Nature? To it we owe all the phenomena of colour, and yet not to it alone; for there must be a certain relationship between the ultimate particles of natural bodies and white light, to enable them to extract from it the luxury of colour. ”

“ Science teaches that white is the source of light or the product of combination of all other colors, because the light of the sun, which is assumed to be white, when broken up by means of a prism, shows in its image reflected upon a white plain, the three primary, and three secondary colors with the uncounted number of intermediary products of combinations of fractions of the primary colors forming the transition from one to the other, which can be perceived by the eye but not exactly separated from one another, but may quantitatively determined to an approximate degree of accuracy. ”

“ The colour, as I’ve said, is not emerald green, as most folks think—that is, not unless it is seen under what science-folks call the prismatic action of light—but a dull white that is almost opaque. The sides are, generally, dripping with the little streams of water formed by the melting of the ice, and glistening in the rays of the sun; but a dull white is the principal colour of the mass. ”

“ Blue, he thinks, causes dissimilation of the blue-yellow substance, while its regeneration is caused by yellow. All colors, he supposes, act in a dissimilating manner on the black-white substance—that is, they produce the sensation of white in addition to their own peculiar color. They act, however, in varying degrees of intensity, yellow acting with the greatest power, the strength of action diminishing toward the two ends of the spectrum. ”

“ Whiteness always results from the intimate and irregular mixture of air and a transparent solid; a crushed diamond would resemble snow. If we pound the more transparent rock-salt into powder, we have a substance as white as the whitest culinary salt; and the colorless glass vessel which holds the salt would also, if pounded, give a powder as white as the salt itself. It is a law of light that, in passing from one substance to another possessing a different power of refraction, a portion of it is always reflected. ”

“ Let the inquiry be into the nature of whiteness. Take a piece of clear glass and a vessel of clear water, pound the glass into fine dust and agitate the water, the pulverised glass and the surface of the water will appear white; and this whiteness will have travelled from non-existence into existence. Again, take a vessel full of any liquor with froth at the top, or take snow, let the froth subside and the snow melt; the whiteness will disappear, and will have travelled from existence to non-existence. ”

“ What we do is to apply certain substances that have the property of absorbing from white light all the colors except those that we would have our houses appear. When a substance reflects all the colors to the eye, it seems to us white. When it absorbs all the colors, it is black. But, as I said before, we have as yet no perfect black. All the colors are not absorbed. The perfect black, guarding against high lights, will be utterly and absolutely invisible. ”

“ Sensations arising in this way from within, as, for example, an idea of whiteness, are not, indeed, perceived with the full freshness of those raised by the actual presence of white light without us, but they are of the same kind; they are feeble repetitions of one and the same material brain process—of one and the same conscious sensation. Thus the idea of whiteness arises in our mind as a faint, almost extinct, sensation. ”

“ The reverse is the case with the word whiteness; what we affirm to be whiteness is not snow, but the color of snow. Whiteness, therefore, is the name of the color exclusively: white is a name of all things whatever having the color; a name, not of the quality whiteness, but of every white object. It is true, this name was given to all those various objects on account of the quality; and we may therefore say, without impropriety, that the quality forms part of its signification; but a name can only be said to stand for, or to be a name of, the things of which it can be predicated. ”

“ Colour be to be Ascrib'd to them as they are Lucid, it seems it should be Whiteness: For the Sun at Noon-day, and in Clear weather, and when his Face is less Troubled, and as it were Stained by the Steams of Sublunary Bodies, and when his Beams have much less of the Atmosphere to Traject in their Passage to our Eyes, appears of a Colour more approaching to White, than when nearer the Horizon, the Interposition of certain Sorts of Fumes and Vapours make him oftentimes appear either Red, or at least more Yellow. ”