324 COLOURED THINKING 



Monsieur Peillaube became acquainted with a Monsieur 



Ch who had audition coloree as well as colored thinking. 



Monsieur Ch had an excellent memory and was able 



to submit his conceptions to searching introspection with 

 the result that he seems to have discovered what may be 

 called the missing link in the associational chain of mental 

 chromatic events. To this coloured thinker the lower 

 notes of the organ were of a violet colour. This seems to 

 have been brought about in the following way: low notes 

 of any kind were sweet and deep (douces et profondes), the 

 colour violet is sweet and deep, therefore it came to pass 

 that the low notes were associated with violet. Similarly, 



to Monsieur Ch the vowel sound of "i" was suggestive 



of something "vive et gaie," the colour green had always 

 been associated with liveliness and gaiety, therefore he 

 thought the vowel "i" was green. These conclusions were 

 reached only after considerable introspection, for it must 

 be understood that the link between the low notes and the 

 colour violet was by no means an explicit or definite presen- 

 tation in this person's mind, at the time that Monsieur 

 Peillaube suggested the enquiry. Peillaube's theory, then, 

 is, that these apparently arbitrary and instantaneous linkings 

 of sounds (x) to colours (y) or of thoughts to colours, are 

 really, after all, cases of association of two terms through 

 the intermediation of a third factor an emotional link (1) 

 now subconscious but revivable. The sequence was x-l-y, 

 but in course of time the 'T' had dropped out of conscious- 

 ness leaving the "x" and the ''y" apparently indissolubly 

 joined together. 



Finally it may be asked, would the capability of coloured 

 thinking cause its possessor to be classed as mentally ab- 

 normal^ The answer is in the negative. Coloured thinkers 

 may not conform to the usual or most commonly met with 

 mental type, but they deviate from that type only in the 

 same way that geniuses deviate from it. Inasmuch as they 



