SENSATION AND ITS OBJECTS. Ill 



&r some centuries past, down to the present 

 moment; we should have been spared the 

 folly of being called upon to believe opinions* 

 that are not more revolting to the feelings, than 

 they are to the good, common, unsophisticated 

 sense and apprehension of mankind. 



Instead of supposing, that the coloring qua- 

 lity of matter abides in the body whence it 

 flows, like every other quality which causes 

 impressions upon the other organs of sense, it 

 is absolutely affirmed, and universally believed, 

 that the color of a body proceeds from what 

 the body does not possess ; instead of arising 

 from rays of color which issue out of it, excit- 

 ing upon the optic sense particular sensations, 

 to which the names of particular colors have 

 been given ; it is supposed, that the color of eve- 

 ry body proceeds from rays of color which were 

 never admitted within it ; but that are repelled 

 from it ; and that a white body is ivhite, because 

 it reflects all the rays, but absorbs none ; and 

 a black body, black, because it absorbs all 

 the rays and reflects none ; it is, therefore, con- 

 cluded that neither black nor white are colors. 

 I would, however, ask any of these persons, 

 whether the matter by which the sensation of 

 white or of black is excited, is not as actual 

 and potential, as that by which the sensation of 

 red or of green, &c. and whether snow and jet 

 have not an actual existence, as certainly as 

 gold and indigo. 



