A BASIS FOR A THEORY OF COLOR VISION.! 
WILLIAM PATTEN, Pu.D. 
Part I. 
THE physiologists and the psychologists have carefully stud- 
ied and compared the sensations caused by ether waves of 
various lengths, and have attempted to explain how these 
manifold sensations of light and color are produced. But a 
satisfactory theory of color vision can never be worked out in 
this way, any more than a comparative study of the sensations 
produced by sticking different kinds of pins into the body will 
enable us to predict the internal sequence of events aroused by 
such treatment. To do that, the anatomist must first tell us 
what the internal mechanism is'like. But he has told us very 
little about the retina. In fact, all that we know about its 
structure, either in man or in the lower animals, might be lost 
to science without seriously affecting the generally accepted 
theories of color vision. Any facts, therefore, that may pos- 
sibly explain how different kinds of ether waves produce a 
differential response in nervous structures will be very wel- 
come, The problem of color vision, like that of hearing, is 
primarily a mechanical one. We may be sure that since the 
stimulant that produces in us the sensation of light and color 
is a series of waves of definite length and frequency, the things 
responding to these movements must have a definite structure 
and position, whether they are molecules, or nervous plates, 
or bars, or fibrils; and their structure and position must deter- 
mine the kind of waves to which they respond. 
The conditions are in some respects similar to those in the 
ear, but they are different in so far as the cochlea possesses a 
1 This paper was read before the American Physiological Society at Ithaca 
in December, 1897. It appeared by title a year earlier on the programme of the 
Morphological Society, but, owing to lack of time, a five-minute abstract only 
