DECOMPOSITION OF LIGHT COLOURS. 77 



in all colours, so does the air-colour among the terrestrial. 

 It is the highest colour of the planet. 



370. The second offuscation of light is water. The 

 colour of water is the third colour. 



371. The third offuscation of light is the earth; and 

 this colour is the last, the most ignoble. The colours 

 part into two series, the cosmic or solar, and the ter- 

 restrial or planetary. The cosmic is the Red. The first 

 terrestrial is Blue. The second is Green. The third is 

 Yellow. Red alone is worth as much as all the three 

 others taken together. It is the identification of all 

 numbers. Green is merely their synthesis, the terrestrial, 

 finite totality. 



372. The genesis of colours is thus the genesis of the 

 elements, or that of matter. It cannot be otherwise ; for 

 the becoming of matter is verily an offuscation of light, 

 a coloration. Colour agrees essentially with the elements, 

 and is itself nothing different from element. Fire is in 

 its essence red, as being the impartient of light and heat ; 

 air is in its essence nothing else than the blue aether by 

 virtue of its being gaseous ; water is the green aether, 

 earth the yellow. If the aether is tensed, it then becomes 

 red or fire ; if it attains its blue stage, it becomes air ; 

 at the green stage, water, upon the yellow, earth, 



373. The elements are only gradations of light, 

 colours. They have therefore been formed according to 

 the laws of light ; for colours are without doubt the 

 legitimate developments of light. 



374. Red, as being the solar or fire-colour, ranks 

 parallel with oxygen ; the more powerful indeed the com- 

 bustion, the more powerful is the oxydation, and by so 

 much redder the flame. Matters also become red through 

 oxydation. The Red vanishes lastly into White, and thus 

 the highest oxydation is white. 



375. The next interchange of Red is with Blue ; it 

 becomes red by oxydation, this again blue by desoxyda- 

 tion, but by excessive alkalization and terrification, yel- 

 low. It is Red that imparts oxydation, Blue that resolves 

 it and reduces the poles to indifference. 



