150 ELEMENTARY PROPERTIES 



how much more must these unnatural conse- 

 quences be produced, if the rays of light are 

 themselves colored originally and essentially! 

 If, in fact, the light which proceeds from 

 the sun to the earth, consists, as Sin ISAAC 

 NEWTON has asserted, (and as it is, at this time, 

 generally believed,) of seven colors, which, pos- 

 sessing different degrees of refrangibility, may, 

 in consequence, be separated from each other, 

 by means of a prism, and seen to display the 

 several colors of red orange yellowgreen 

 bfae ! indigo and violet ; that these seven 

 different colors are original and simple ; and 

 that all the colors in the world, either consist 

 of these simple colors, or of compounds, formed 

 out of them, mixed together in different pro- 

 portions. 



If this hypothesis were true, that the rays of 

 the sun, the pure matter of light, were colored, 

 the inevitable consequence would be, that all 

 the bodies which were conveyed to our organs 

 of vision, would be constantly tinctured and 

 dyed by the particular colors of those rays. 

 It would not be the specific and identical color 

 of the object itself, that we should behold, but 

 the individual colors of the rays alone. Thai 

 this would be the fact, may be proved in a 

 manner the most satisfactory and decisive. If 

 a beam of light be separated by a prism, into 

 the seven prismatic colors, and any substance 



