passed thinly over the white saucer, they would compare the light colour thus produced to the colour of the sky, and call it blue. If a rose was shown them beside it, they would, in like manner, call it blue; and in all the trials which were made, it appeared that they could not distinguish light blue from rose-colour. They confounded rose-colour, blue, and violet on all occasions: these colours only appeared to them to be distinguished from each other by delicate shades of lighter, darker, intenser, or fainter appearance.
108.
Again they could not distinguish green from dark orange, nor, more especially, from a red brown.
109.
If any one, accidentally conversing with these individuals, happened to question them about surrounding objects, their answers occasioned the greatest perplexity, and the interrogator began to fancy his own wits were out of order. With some method we may, however, approach to a nearer knowledge of the law of this deviation from the general law.
110.
These persons, as may be gathered from what has been stated, saw fewer colours than other people: hence arose the confusion of different colours. They called the sky rose-colour, and the rose blue, or vice versâ. The question now is: did they see both blue or both rose-colour? did they see green orange, or orange green?
111.
This singular enigma appears to solve itself, if we assume that they saw no blue, but, instead of it, a light pure red, a rose-colour. We can comprehend what would be the result of this