THE PSYCHOLOGY OF RED. 517 



THE PSYCHOLOGY OF BED. (II.) 



By HAVELOCK ELLIS. 



The facts and considerations we have passed in review fairly indicate 

 the physiological and psychological preeminence of red among the 

 colors of the spectrum to which we are sensitive. What is the cause 

 of that preeminence? 



It seems to me that two orders of causes have cooperated to produce 

 this predominant influence, one physical and depending on the special 

 effects of the long-waved portion of the spectrum on living matter, the 

 other psychological and resulting from the special environmental in- 

 fluences to which man, and to some extent even the higher animals 

 generally, have heen subjected. It is possible that these two influences 

 blend together and cannot at any point be disentangled; it is possible 

 that acquired aptitude may be inherited or that what seem to be 

 acquired aptitudes are really perpetuated congenital variations; but 

 on the whole the two influences are so distinct that we may deal with 

 them separately. 



On the physical side the influence of the red rays, although there ia 

 much evidence showing that it may be traced throughout the whole 

 of organic nature, is certainly most strongly and convincingly exhibited 

 on plants. The characteristic greenness of vegetation alone bears wit- 

 ness to this fact. The red rays are life to the chlorophyll-bearing 

 plant, the violet rays are death. A meadow, it has been justly said, is a 

 vast field of tongues of fire greedily licking up the red rays and vomiting 

 forth the poisonous bile of blue and yellow. An experiment of Flam- 

 marion's has beautifully shown the widely different reaction of plants 

 to the red and violet rays. At the climatological station at Juvisy he 

 constructed four greenhouses — one of ordinary transparent glass, an- 

 other of red glass, another of green, the fourth of dark blue. The glass 

 was monochromatic, as carefully tested by the spectroscope, and dark 

 blue was used instead of violet because it was impossible to obtain a 

 perfect violet glass. These were all placed under uniform meteorological 

 and other conditions, and from certain plants such as the sensitive 

 plant, previously sown on the same day in the same soil, eight of each 

 kind were selected, all measuring 27 millimetres, and placed by two and 

 two in the four greenhouses on the 4th of July. On the 15th of August 

 there were notable differences in height, color and sensitiveness, and 

 these differences continued to become marked; photographs of the 



