346 THE SPECIAL SENSES. 



The Achromatic Series. — Our standard white sensation is that 

 caused by sunlight. Objects reflecting to our eye all the visible 

 rays of the sunlight give us a white sensation. This sensation, 

 therefore, is due primarily to the combined action of all the visible 

 rays of the spectrum, each of which, taken separately, would give 

 us a color sensation. White or gray may be produced also by the 

 combined action of certain pairs of colors, — complementary colors, — 

 as is described below. Black, on the contrary, is the sensation 

 caused by withdrawal of Hght. It must be emphasized that in 

 order to see black a retina must be present. It is probable that 

 a person with both eyes enucleated has no sensation of darkness. 

 That black is a sensation referable to a condition of the retina is 

 made probable also by the interesting observations recorded by 

 Gotch,* — namely, that when an eye that has been exposed to light 

 is suddenly cut off from the light there is an electrical change in the 

 retina, a dark response, similar to that caused by throwing light on 

 a retina previously kept in the dark. Blackness, therefore, is a 

 sensation produced by withdrawing light from the retina, and a 

 black object is one that reflects no light to the eye. Black may be 

 combined with white to produce the series of grays, and when com- 

 bined with the spectral colors it gives a series of modified color tones, 

 thus the olives of different shades may be considered as combina- 

 tions of green and black in varying proportions. 



The chromatic series consists of those qualities to which we give 

 the name of colors, and, as stated above, they comprise the spectral 

 colors, and the extraspectral color, purple, together with the light- 

 weak and light-strong hues obtained by combining the colors with 

 white or black. In the spectrum many different colors may be 

 detected — some observers record as many as one hundred and 

 sixty — but in general we give specific names only to those that 

 stand sufficiently far apart to represent quite distinct sensations, 

 namely, the red, orange, yellow, green, blue, and violet. The 

 limiting wave-lengths of these colors according to Listing are: 

 Red, 7230-6470; orange, 6470-5850; yellow, 5850-5750; green, 

 5750-4920; blue, 4920-4550; indigo, 4550-4240; violet, 4240- 

 3970. When light is taken from a definite limited portion of the 

 spectrum we have a monochromatic light that gives us a distinct 

 color sensation varying with the wave length of the portion 

 chosen. 



Color Saturation and Color Fusion. — The term "saturation" as 

 applied to colors is meant to define their freedom from accompany- 

 ing white sensation. A perfectly saturated color would be one 

 entirely free from mixture with white. On the objective side it is 

 * Gotch, "Journal of Physiology," 29, 388, 1903. 



