310 
LIGHT AND COLOUR. 
BY ROBERT HUNT, F.E.S. 
HE earliest truths, taught us in the oldest Book, are, that 
J- when darkness was upon the face of the deep, the Earth 
was without form and void ; and that, after the creation of 
Light, the surface of tins planet was speedily covered with orga- 
nized forms, rejoicing in the fulness of life. 
Man, through all time and in every country, has given expres- 
sion to these truths. Light and Life — Darkness and Death — • 
Light and Truth — Darkness and Falsehood, have constantly 
been associated in the human mind as relative terms. Every 
mythology has shadowed forth in some of its impersonations the 
connection of the Sun and its golden glories with all that is living 
and beautiful on the Earth. The Heaven of man has always 
been a realm of Light, and Hell a region of the deepest gloom. 
The Sun has, from the earliest indications of mental effort, been 
the object of religious contemplation amongst men, and through 
long periods of time, that orb has been the centre of their 
sincere, though mistaken, adoration. The highest efforts of 
pure thought which distinguished the refined philosophy of 
Greece leads but to this end, and Plato’s sublime expression, 
God is Light, forms the sum, as it were, of the mental power 
of this refined people. 
Advancing beyond this point, by the aids of inductive 
science, the modems have been taught by their philosophers 
to regard the Sun as the source and centre of mighty Forces, 
upon which depend the great phenomena of terrestrial creation, 
and to see far beyond and above it the Omnipotent Creator. 
The Sun is not to us an object of adoration, because by the 
increased penetrating power of our mental vision we are ren- 
dered conscious of agencies beyond the Sun, by which that 
orb with all its attendant worlds are regulated. Light is not a 
god to us, because we believe Light to be but one of the mani- 
festations of Creative Wisdom. We burn no fires upon our 
hills as symbols of the sacred solar fires, because man has 
discovered that the vivifying forces of the sun-beam, are but 
indications of the transformation of matter taking place in obe- 
