do with circumscribed objects. In the act of seeing, generally, it is the circumscribed visible which chiefly invites our observation; and in the present instance, in speaking of the appearance of colour, as occasioned by refraction, the circumscribed visible, the detached object solely occupies our attention.
220.
For our chromatic exhibitions we can, however, divide objects generally into primary and secondary. The expressions of themselves denote what we understand by them, but our meaning will be rendered still more plain by what follows.
221.
Primary objects may be considered firstly as original, as images which are impressed on the eye by things before it, and which assure us of their reality. To these the secondary images may be opposed as derived images, which remain in the organ when the object itself is taken away; those apparent after-images, which have been circumstantially treated of in the doctrine of physiological colours.
222.
The primary images, again, may be considered as direct images, which, like the original impressions, are conveyed immediately from the object to the eye. In contradistinction to these, the secondary images may be considered as indirect, being only conveyed to us, as it were, at second-hand from a reflecting surface. These are the mirrored, or catoptrical, images, which in certain cases can also become double images:
223.
When, namely, the reflecting body is transparent, and has two parallel surfaces, one behind the other: in such a case, an image may be reflected to the eye from both surfaces, and thus arise double images, inasmuch