U6 COLOUR VISION 



the case of names for green and blue. Geiger advanced the view that 

 the sensation of red had been evolved first, then yellow and green, and 

 finally blue. Magnus^ came to the same conclusions from still more 

 extensive researches, and Gladstone^ returned to the subject in the same 

 year. 



These views were strongly criticised by Grant Allen^. It was shown 

 that modern poems showed similar peculiarities, red occurring much more 

 often than blue in Swinburne's Poems and Ballads and in Tennyson's 

 Princess. La Fontaine used an epithet for blue once only in all his 

 poems (Javal*). 



Philological evidence on matters of this kind is notoriously open to 

 doubt, but it is probable that the opposition to the views of Gladstone, 

 Geiger, and Magnus was carried too far. The examination of two parties 

 of Nubians, who were travelling in Germany in 1877, by Virchow and 

 others did much to bring about this result. It was found that they 

 used the same word for blue as for black and other dark colours, yet they 

 sorted coloured papers and wools correctly. 



The use of pigments by the Egyptians, Assyrians, Greeks and others 

 has also been brought forward in opposition to Geiger's views. Green 

 and blue pigments were used by the Egyptians long before the time of 

 Homer, and green and blue beads are found in the prehistoric Egyptian 

 tombs. Benzaky^ has collected the evidence from ancient monuments 

 and considers that it conclusively disproves any colour defect in the 

 Egyptians and Greeks. As Rivers points out, however, the colour sense 

 of the Egyptians — and they appear to have had two names for green 

 and one for blue — has no direct bearing on that of the Greeks, who may 

 have remained in a state of arrested development. Moreover, even in 

 Egypt human statues with blue hair have been found, and in the 

 Acropolis there may be seen a blue bull, a blue horse, and a man with 

 blue hair and beard, all dating from later than the time of Homer^. 



Magnus' pointed out that the same defect of terminology for green 

 and blue which characterises ancient writings still exists among many 

 primitive races. 



^ Die geschichtlich? E nhuickelung des Farbensinves, Leipzig, 1877. 

 ' Nineteenth Century, ir. 366, 1877. 

 ^ The Colour Sense, London, 1879. 



* Bull, de la Soc. d' Anthropologie de Paris, xii. 480. 1877. 



* Du Sens chromatique dans Vantiquite, Paris, 1897. 



^ Cf. E. A. Gardner, Handbook of Greek Sculpture, p. 28, 1902. 



^ Untersuchungen u. d. Farhensinn d. Naturvolker, Jena, 1880 ; Ueber ethnol. Unter- 

 such. d. Farbensinnes, Breslau, 1883. 



