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nydus/Goethe's Theory of ColoursPublic

This volume presents an English translation of Johann Wolfgang von Goethe’s treatise on the nature and perception of color. The work includes a collection of systematic observations and experiments alongside the author’s theoretical challenges to Newtonian optics.

Page 109 of 553
Table of Contents

GOETHE'S

colourless.

140.

Light under these circumstances may be affected by three conditions. First, when it flashes back from the surface of a medium; in considering which catoptrical experiments invite our attention. Secondly, when it passes by the edge of a medium: the phenomena thus produced were formerly called perioptical; we prefer the term paroptical. Thirdly, when it passes through either a merely light-transmitting or an actually transparent body; thus constituting a class of appearances on which dioptrical experiments are founded. We have called a fourth class of physical colours epoptical, as the phenomena exhibit themselves on the colourless surface of bodies under various conditions, without previous or actual dye (βαφή).—Note K.

141.

In examining these categories with reference to our three leading divisions, according to

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