370 POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



noted as very marked among the hysterical. Red also exerted a great 

 fascination over the victims of the mediaeval hysterical epidemics of 

 tarantism in Italy, while the victims of the German mediaeval epidemic 

 of St. Vitus's dance imagined that they were immersed in a stream of 

 blood which compelled them to leap up. 



It may be noted that red and perhaps yellow have been stated to be 

 the only colors visible in dreams; this is possibly due to the blood- 

 vessels. Such an explanation is probable with regard to the various 

 subjective visual sensations which constitute an aura in epilepsy, among 

 which, as Gowers notes, red and reddish yellow are most frequently 

 found. Fere has further noted that in various emotional states some- 

 what resembling epilepsy, and even in mystic exaltation, red may be 

 subjectively seen. Simroth has gone so far as to argue that not only 

 is red fundamental in human color psychology, but that in living or- 

 ganisms generally, even as a pigment, red is the most primitive of colors, 

 that since the algae at the greatest sea-depths are red it is possible that 

 protoplasm at first only responded to rays of long wave-length, and that 

 with increased metabolism colors became differentiated, following the 

 order in the spectrum. 



If it is really the case that in the evolution of the race familiarity 

 with the red end of the spectrum has been earlier and more perfectly 

 acquired than with the violet end, and that red and yellow made a more 

 profound impression on primitive man than green and blue, we should 

 expect to find this evolution reflected in the development of the in- 

 dividual, and that the child would earlier acquire a sensitiveness for red 

 and orange and yellow than for green and blue and violet. This seems 

 actually to be the case. The study of the color sense in children is, 

 indeed, even more difficult than in savages; and many investigators have 

 probably succumbed to the fallacies involved in this study. Doubtless 

 we may thus account for some discrepancies in the attempts to ascertain 

 the facts of color perception and color preference in children, while 

 doubtless also there are individual differences which discount the value 

 of experiments made on only a single child. A few careful and elaborate 

 investigations, however, especially that of Garbini on 600 North Italian 

 children of various ages, have thrown much light on the matter. There 

 is fairly general agreement that red is the first color that attracts young 

 children and which they recognize. That is the result recorded by 

 Uffelmann in Germany, while Preyer found yellow and red at the head; 

 Binet in France concluded that red comes first; Wolfe in America 

 reached the same result, and Luckey noted that his own children seemed 

 to enjoy red, orange and yellow very much earlier than they could per- 

 ceive blue, which seemed to come last. Baldwin, indeed, found in the 

 case of his own child that blue seemed more attractive than red; his 

 methods have, however, been criticised, and his experiments failed to 



