THE PSYCHOLOGY OF RED. 523 



man, the color of fruits must be a powerful factor in developing a 

 sensibility for red rays, and in associating such sensibility with emo- 

 tional satisfaction. The color of fruits is most generally red, orange or 

 purple, and since purple is largely made up of red, it is clear that the 

 influence of fruits will almost exclusively bear on the rays of long 

 wave-length. We may reasonably suppose that the search for fruits 

 acted as an important factor in the development of a special sensibility 

 for red. 



A later factor in the predilection for the red, orange and yellow rays, 

 though scarcely a factor in their discrimination, lies in the fact that 

 these are the colors of fire. Flame, apart from its beauty, on which 

 certain poets, Shelley especially, have often insisted, is a source of 

 massive physical satisfaction. Even under the conditions of civilization 

 we are often acutely sensitive to this fact, while under the conditions 

 of primitive life, in imperfect shelters, caves or tents, where no other 

 source of artificial light and heat is known, the satisfaction is im- 

 mensely greater. At the same time fire is associated with food, it is a 

 protection from wild beasts and the accompaniment of the festival. It 

 may even take on a sacred and symbolic character, and the Soman 

 goddess Vesta was, as Ovid said, simply 'living flame.' 



While fruit or fire would tend to make the emotional tone of red 

 pleasant, another very powerful factor in its emotional influences, 

 though this time as much by causing terror as pleasure, is the fact that 

 it is the color of blood. That 'the blood is the life' is a belief instinct- 

 ively stamped even on the emotions of animals, and it has not 

 died even in civilized man, for the sight of blood produces on many 

 persons a sickening and terrifying sensation which is only overcome by 

 habit and experience or by a very strong effort of will. It is not sur- 

 prising that in some parts of the world, and even in our own Indo- 

 European group of languages, the name for red is 'blood-color.' 



It is evident, however, that at a very early period of primitive 

 culture the blood had ceased to be merely a source of terror, or even 

 of the joy of battle. We find everywhere that blood is blended into 

 complex ritual customs, and thus associated with complex emotional 

 states. Among the ancient Arabians blood was smeared on the body 

 on various occasions, and in modern Arabia blood is still so used. 

 Everywhere, even in the folk-lore of modern Europe, we find that blood 

 is a medicine, as it is also among the primitive aborigines of Australia, 

 so carefully investigated by Baldwin Spencer and Gillen. Among 

 these latter primitive people we meet with a phenomenon of very great 

 significance. We find, that is, that blood is the earliest pigment. There 

 can be little doubt that the earliest paint used by man — no doubt by 

 man when in a much more primitive condition than even the Aus- 

 tralians — was blood. In the initiation rites of the Arunta tribes, as 



