Sees 
75 
withdrawn they returned to the wild state from which he took them, 
and resumed their original colours, spot for spot, stripe for stripe, 
tint for tint. 
The whole analogy of Nature must convince us that properties so 
carefully guarded must have an object, and our business, as natural- 
ists, was to try and find out what that object was. There were some 
who said in explanation of the brilliant colouring of flowers, that they 
were adorned simply to please the eye of man and gratify his inborn 
love of beauty. With all deference to those who thought so, he could 
only say that such an explanation might satisfy them, but would not 
satisfy him. If the eye of man was pleased with the colours of 
flowers, it was not, he thought, because they were fitted to his eye, but 
because his eye was constructed to enjoy them. He admired them be- 
cause they were in Nature, and they were in Nature because they were 
required there. Nevertheless, we might gain some help in our inves- 
tigation by enquiring into the proximate effect of harmony of colour 
onthe eye. It was hardly now necessary to explain that colour was 
produced by the reflection of a portion of the luminous rays, the re- 
mainder being absorbed by the surface on which the colour appeared. 
The solar light was composed of fixed proportions of blue, yellow, and 
red, from a mixture of which all other tints were produced. The 
combination of all the rays was white, their entire absence black. 
Wherever the reflected colours from objects blended together in the 
proportions requisite to produce white light, the effect on the eye was 
what we called harmony, and wherever Nature was allowed to reign 
undisturbed, this harmony prevailed. 
Thus the blue hyacinth grew beside the orange coloured cowslip ; 
the purple violet with the pale primrose. Thus, too, the deep crimson 
of the foxglove (digitalis purpurea) and the delicate pink of the dog- 
rose were each contrasted with appropriate shades of green in their 
foliage. But still further to secure the balance a power was placed in 
the eye of rejecting a superfluity of any one colour, and admitting 
only those rays which formed its complement, so that when the obser- 
ver had gazed for some time on a vividly red object, everything ap- 
peared tinged with green, and vice versa. 
But while provision was thus made for asupply of the component 
part of white light, it did not appear that it was immaterial’ whether 
the rays be received separately or in combination. White light, as 
