PRIMITIVE COLOR VISION. 55 



a still closer bearing on the condition of primitive man, but here again 

 the scanty evidence is negative. The only experimental investigation 

 with which I am acquainted is that made by Romanes* on the chim- 

 panzee 'Saliy in the Zoological Gardens. After having successfully 

 taught this animal to recognize numbers, Romanes proceeded to apply a 

 similar method to teach her colors, but wholly without success, and he 

 was obliged to conclude that the animal was probably color-blind. It 

 may be objected that the brilliant coloration of the mandrill and 

 other species points to the existence of a color sense in the primates, 

 but little weight can be attached to such indirect evidence in the ab- 

 sence of experimental investigation. 



Another subject which has some bearing on the question is that 

 of the color sense of the human child. It is now a more or less ac- 

 cepted principle in biology that the history of the individual presents 

 the same stages of development as have occurred in the history of 

 the race. Darwin t was the first to point out that the power of dis- 

 tinguishing colors is a very late accomplishment in childhood; he found 

 that his children were unable to name colors correctly at an age in 

 which they knew the names of all familiar objects. This subject has 

 since been the subject of much investigation, the most important work 

 having been done by the late Professor Preyer t and by GarMui. § Preyer 

 made a very large number of investigations on one child, while Garbini 

 has based his results upon the observations of no less than 600 children. 

 Both agree in the conclusion that the child is unable to distinguish 

 colors at all till towards the end of the second year, and they also agree 

 that red is distinguished and named correctly at an earlier age than blue, 

 although there is some difference of opinion as to the exact order of 

 development of other colors. Garbini points out further that the 

 power of distinguishing colors develops earlier than the power of naming 

 colors, language appearing to lag behind sense. If any importance is 

 to be attached to the bearing of the history of the child on the history 

 of the race, the evidence from childhood is in favor of the view that 

 the color sense of man is a comparatively recent acquirement. 



Whatever room for difference of opinion there may be on the ques- 

 tion of the evolution of the color sense, there can be no doubt that 

 there has been an evolution of color language. The possibility that the 

 course of this evolution has been determined by physiological conditions 

 has been considered, but there can, I think, be little doubt that these 

 have not been the only factors upon which the characteristic defects of 

 language have depended. The deficiency in the sense for blue, which 



* Troc. Zoolog. Soe.,' 1889; p. 316. 



t 'Kosmos,' Bd. I., s. 376; 1877. 



t i Die Seele des Kindes.' Leipzig, 1884. 



§ 'Arch, per I'Anthropologia e la Ethnologia,' Vol. XXIV., pp. 1l and 193; 1894. 



