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when we perceive the impressions that give rise to the phenomena of contrasts of vision, it seems to me that we should not refuse to acknowledge that, in summing up this relationship in these words, the brain perceives and judges ideas as it judges colours which it perceives by the medium of the eye, we establish a comparison which, by simply attaching value to it as a figure of rhetoric suited to enliven some part of a discourse, is not without utility for the light it is susceptible of throwing on the understanding.

It is then to simplify this study that I now consider contrast as simple comparison; either when we see two differently coloured monochromous objects, or when a greater number are before our eyes, we can only perceive at one time some of the affinities, instead of the whole, which it would be indispensable to see in order to arrive at a complete and perfect knowledge of these objects.

1°. The well-established fact that red, isolated, appears differently than when it is juxtaposed with a white, black, blue, or yellow surface, and that under these circumstances five identical red patterns would appear five different patterns, is important as a limit of comparison fitted to show clearly how the same object may give rise to different opinions among those who judge in an absolute manner, without regard to the possible influence of some relative circumstance. We here suppose the opinions are the result of the comparisons of coloured patterns with the tones found in the chromatic diagram (159.). The fact in question is applicable to many cases. I will cite two as examples.

(a) A person, ignorant of the effects of the juxtaposition of colours, judging that the five red patterns are different, although really identical, presents an example of the circumspection it is necessary to exercise in the opinions formed of compared objects slightly differing from each other, and which are not observed under the same conditions.

(b) Five persons know that the same red has been placed in the five conditions indicated, but are ignorant of the influence of juxtaposition, and, consequently, of the influence of these conditions: they have each seen only one of the

five patterns; a discussion arises on the optical quality of this red: if the one that has seen the isolated pattern says that it remains as he first saw it, the four others will say that the red, after having been placed in one of the prescribed conditions, does not seem as it did before. But they will not agree when they come to decide upon the kind of modification which the red has experienced; the person who has seen the red juxtaposed with black will maintain that the tone is lowered, whilst he who has observed it juxtaposed with white will, on the contrary, maintain that the tone is heightened, but both of them will agree in asserting that the red has not gone out of its scale; an opinion which the two last will combat, who, having viewed the red in juxtaposition with yellow and blue, have seen it go out of the scale to which it belonged before it was placed in this latter position; but of the two latter the one who has seen it near the yellow will assert that it possesses a violet hue, whilst, on the contrary, he who has seen it juxtaposed with the blue will maintain that it is tinged with orange. The five persons who have each seen the same red in a different condition of juxtaposition are right in declaring, that they see it in such a manner, and each has cause for maintaining his opinion; but he is evidently wrong, if he pretends that the others ought to see the red as he himself does.

The conclusion to be deduced from this is, that in a bonâ fide discussion, in which neither interest nor conceit bears a part, if we wish to arrive at an exact conclusion, it is first necessary to know the principles on which each supports his reasonings, the terms of comparison that enter into each opinion, and, finally, to ascertain if we really view the object of discussion from the same point.

Another result to be deduced from the preceding fact is, that when we must believe in the interference of passion in an opinion differing from our own, by regarding it closely, we may find that there is only a simple difference of position. After that, in many cases where we have been led to assign a less honourable motive to an opinion or action, it is probable that we shall be nearer to justice and truth by interpreting these things with indulgence rather than with severity.

2o. In considering that the eye sees at one time only a small number of objects that compose a whole, when it desires to penetrate into the details of that whole (748.), and that several individuals are able to see the same part differently modified because they see them in connection with different parts (483.)-in considering, finally, that these differences in the modifications of the same part may be observed by the same individual (499.),—we are led to acquire a clear idea of the manner in which the human mind proceeds in the study of nature. In fact, we see, first, how man, wanting in power to embrace the whole of the objects with which he wishes to be thoroughly acquainted, is forced to have recourse to analysis; how that, by not fixing his attention upon one fact at a time, he can only arrive at his aim by successive efforts, after having studied piece by piece each element of the whole he examines. If we now consider that the human mind is composed of the minds of all—that the edifice of science it has raised up is the product of the efforts of minds which, far from being identical, present the same differences as the forms of the bodies they animatewe shall then comprehend how the various minds that study the same subject consider it under extremely different relations, when the fact that will strike each of them in particular will not be identical, because their diversity of nature is an obstacle to their being equally accessible to the same fact. It will be the thing which strikes them the most that they will then examine; but superior minds will distinguish themselves above others, because they will bring their meditations to bear on facts which, considering the epoch in which their minds labour, it will be more important and more essential for the advancement of human knowledge to know.

If the faculty of reasoning, in order to discover the relations of the phenomena which strike us-if the faculty we possess of communicating the discovery of these relations to our fellow-creatures distinguishes us from the animals properly so called-lastly, if to attain this end we make so extensive a use of the faculty of abstraction-it is nevertheless important to remark that this necessity man has for decomposing a whole into its elements in order to under

stand it is a token of the feebleness of his nature, and that this feebleness is revealed in all the results of his analysis, because it has not yet been permitted to an individual, nor to his contemporaries, to make a complete analysis of any object out of pure mathematics. For the desire which leads man to study nature leads him always, or almost always, to extend the results of his investigations beyond the boundary where he must stop in order not to pass beyond the limits traced by rigorous reasoning.

INDEX.

**The figures refer to the paragraphs, and not to the pages.

A.

ABSORPTION of light by bodies, 4, 5

Accidental colours, 121; synonymous with complementary, 123
Esthetics of coloured objects, 829

Antagonism, 967

Application of the law of contrast to the hypothesis of primary and
secondary colours, 76

April, arrangement of flowers in the month of, 755

Arabesques in decoration, 654-5

Architecture, errors in teaching, 932

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employment of colours in Egyptian, 540; in Gothic,
546; in Grecian, 548

Art, first condition a work of, must fulfil, 433

Association of complementary colours, 845

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non-complementary colours, 846

Associations bad of colours improved by separating them with white,

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240

binary colours critically considered, 844
complex colours critically considered, 860

Assortment of frames with pictures and engravings, 564
furniture with the wood of chairs, 557

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Assortments in which black is inferior to white, 243; in which it is
preferable, 241

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in which grey associates more favourably than black, 246
of red, orange, yellow, green, blue, and violet with white,
black, and grey, 181

August, association of flowers for the month of, 759

B.

Bad assortments of colours improved by white, 249; by black, 241,

242

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