791.
As the higher dignitaries of the church have appropriated this unquiet colour to themselves, we may venture to say that it unceasingly aspires to the cardinal's red through the restless degrees of a still impatient progression.
RED.
792.
We are here to forget everything that borders on yellow or blue. We are to imagine an absolutely pure red, like fine carmine suffered to dry on white porcelain. We have called this colour "purpur" by way of distinction, although we are quite aware that the purple of the ancients inclined more to blue.
793.
Whoever is acquainted with the prismatic origin of red, will not think it paradoxical if we assert that this colour partly actu, partly potentiâ, includes all the other colours.
794.
We have remarked a constant progress or augmentation in yellow and blue, and seen what impressions were produced by the various states; hence it may naturally be inferred that now, in the junction of the deepened extremes, a feeling of satisfaction must succeed; and thus, in physical phenomena, this highest of all appearances of colour arises from the junction of two contrasted extremes which have gradually prepared themselves for a union.
795.