Theory of Colours — trans. Charles Lock Eastlake (1840)

The plates which generally accompany works like the present are thus a most inadequate substitute for all this; a physical phenomenon exhibiting its effects on all sides is not to be arrested in lines nor denoted by a section. No one ever dreams of explaining chemical experiments with figures; yet it is customary in physical researches nearly allied to these, because the object is thus found to be in some degree answered. In many cases, however, such diagrams represent mere notions; they are symbolical resources, hieroglyphic modes of communication, which by degrees assume the place of the phenomena and of Nature herself, and thus rather hinder than promote true knowledge. In the present instance we could not dispense with plates, but we have endeavoured so to construct them that they may be confidently referred to for the explanation of the didactic and polemical portions. Some of these may even be considered as forming part of the apparatus before mentioned.

We now therefore refer the reader to the work itself; first, only repeating a request which many an author has already made in vain, and which the modern German reader, especially, so seldom grants:--

Si quid novisti rectius istis
Candidus imperti; si non, his utere mecum.

[1] The Polemical part.

[2] This preface must have been written before the work was finished, for at the conclusion of the historical part there is only an apology for the non-appearance of the supplement here alluded to.

[3] In the present translation the necessary plates accompany the text.

CONTENTS

Introduction xxxvii

PART I.

PHYSIOLOGICAL COLOURS.

• I. Effects of Light and Darkness on the Eye
• II. Effects of Black and White Objects on the Eye
• III. Grey Surfaces and Objects
• IV. Dazzling Colourless Objects
• V. Coloured Objects
• VI. Coloured Shadows
• VII. Faint Lights
• VIII. Subjective Halos Pathological Colours--Appendix

PART II.

PHYSICAL COLOURS.

• IX. Dioptrical Colours
• X. Dioptrical Colours of the First Class
• XI. Dioptrical Colours of the Second Class--Refraction Subjective Experiments
• XII. Refraction without the Appearance of Colour
• XIII. Conditions of the Appearance of Colour
• XIV. Conditions under which the Appearance of Colour increases
• XV. Explanation of the foregoing Phenomena
• XVI. Decrease of the Appearance of Colour
• XVII. Grey Objects displaced by Refraction
• XVIII. Coloured Objects displaced by Refraction
• XIX. Achromatism and Hyperchromatism
• XX. Advantages of Subjective Experiments-- Transition to the Objective Objective Experiments
• XXI. Refraction without the Appearance of Colour
• XXII. Conditions of the Appearance of Colour
• XXIII. Conditions of the Increase of Colour
• XXIV. Explanation of the foregoing Phenomena
• XXV. Decrease of the Appearance of Colour
• XXVI. Grey Objects
• XXVII. Coloured Objects
• XXVIII. Achromatism and Hyperchromatism
• XXIX. Combination of Subjective and Objective Experiments
• XXX. Transition
• XXXI. Catoptrical Colours
• XXXII. Paroptical Colours
• XXXIII. Epoptical Colours

PART III.

CHEMICAL COLOURS.