the Inflection, Reflection , and Colours of Light. 273 
was transmitted or reflected, all were transmitted or reflected. 
We cannot therefore apply the different reflexibility of light, 
to the explanation of the colours of bodies, since this property 
has no existence. But we have shewn that the rays differ in 
reflexibility, taking the word in the new sense, as explained 
above ; let us see whether this principle will not solve the im- 
portant problem. It is evident that the particles of bodies 
are specular. Now I take the colours of bodies to depend, not 
on the size, but on the position of these particles, or at least 
on only the size in as far as it influences their position ; an idea 
perfectly familiar to mathematicians. 
Obs. 1 6, In making some of the experiments, which I re- 
lated above on the reflexibility of light, I observed, among 
the regular images made by most of the pins which I used, 
one or two all of the same colour, as red, blue, &c. and when 
the pin was moved these moved also, becoming of other co- 
lours in regular order, like the rest ; which shows plainly that 
their being of one colour at first was owing to some fibre in 
the surface jutting out, or rather to several of these, which 
stopped the red and all the rest but the blue of several images, 
or the blue and all the rest but the red. Farther, I produced 
several regular images by two or three very small pins, and 
with considerable trouble I at last contrived to place them in 
such a position as that one blue colour of considerable size 
might be produced, then a red, and so on, by altering the 
posture of the pins ; now’, whether the posture or the size be 
altered it matters not, for the one affects the other. Is it not 
evident that this experiment, and the conclusion to which it 
evidently leads, may be transferred to the colours of natural 
bodies as seen by reflection ? for the parts being specular and 
mdccxcvi. N n 
