118 M. NOBILI ON COLOURS, AND ON A NEW CHROMATIC SCALE 
first to the lower colours of the spectrum, such as the red, orange, &c., 
and the second to the superior colours, such as the violet, indigo, &c. 
The most gloomy tints on the scale are, according to the generally 
received opinion, those of Nos. 10, 11 and 12, in which the higher co- 
lours of the spectrum abound. These colours, it cannot be denied, are 
also the least bright, and this quality may well be the cause of the 
gloominess which is felt in viewing them. 
It is possible however that there may be in this case an unknown ge- 
neral law, which it would be worth while to investigate with the aid of 
the analogies afforded by acoustic phenomena, of which the principles 
are better known. 
On the Pathetic and the Cheerful in Music and Painting. 
An exclamation or shout of joy consists of notes ascending from the 
grave to the acute; a cry proceeding from grief or pain consists, on the 
contrary, of notes descending from the acute to the grave. It is not more 
singular than true, although it has never before been remarked, that 
the same notes sung or executed on an instrument will produce in the 
ascending scale a very different effect from that which they produce in 
the descending scale. In the first case the feeling excited is decidedly 
cheerful; in the second it is as decidedly sad. This is a fact which 
in both a physical and a physiological point of view remains yet un- 
explained, but may serve nevertheless as a law for all analogous 
cases. 
Violet is a colour which certainly awakes a feeling of sadness. Can 
it be owing to a similar law that it produces such a sensation? I inspect 
the table of imaginary colours, and find that the green-yellow corresponds 
to the violet. We know that according to the theory of vibrations the 
violet is produced by shorter and the red by longer vibrations. The 
transition then from the violet, which is the real colour, to the green- 
yellow, which is the imaginary, is a transition from the acute to the grave, 
and analogous to that which takes place in the notes that produce sad- 
ness. The only difference between the two cases is, that in the one the 
sensation is the direct and immediate effect of the notes conveyed to the 
ear from without, whilst in the other the eye receives from without no- 
thing more than the impression of the violet colour, the rest of the ef- 
fect depending on the internal action of the optical nerves which are en- 
dowed with the power of passing of themselves from the real to the ima- 
ginary colour. A difference of this kind however is not incompatible 
with the existence of the analogy : it only leads to the inference that the 
eye possesses the more exquisite sensibility, since in this organ a mere 
disposition or tendency is sufficient to produce an effect which in the ear 
is due to an external cause: for, the superior delicacy of the eye is evi- 
dently the cause of the existence of these imaginary colours, which have 
