SO STUDIES OF NATURE. 



with creeping vegetables and trees, in form of a 

 parafol, fome of which, fuch as the cocoa-tree of 

 the Sechelles-iflands, and the talipot of Ceylon, 

 have Reaves from twelve to fifteen feet long, and 

 from feven to eight feet broad. She clothes the 

 animals of thofe regions with hairlefs fcins, and 

 colours them, in general, as well as the verdure, 

 with dark and dufky tints, in order to diminifli 

 the reflexes of the heat and of the light. This 

 laft confideration leads me here to fuggeft a few 

 reflections on the effects of colours ; the little 

 which I fhall advance on this fubject, will be fuffi- 

 cient to produce conviction, that their generations 

 are not the effect of chance ; that it is from rea- 

 fons profoundly wife we find one half of them 

 proceed, in compounding themfelves, toward the 

 light; and in their decompofition, toward dark- 

 nefs ; and that all the harmonies of this World 

 are produced by contraries. 



Naturalifts confider colours as accidents. But, 

 if we attend to the general ufes for which Nature 

 employs them, we fhall be perfuaded that there is 

 not, even on rocks, a fingle made impreffed with- 

 out a meaning and a purpofe. Let us obferve, in 

 the firft place, the principal effects of the two ex- 

 treme colours, white and black, with relation to 

 the light. Experience demonflrates that, of all 

 colours, white is that which belt reflects the rays 



of 



