I
F THE FIVE SENSES
as it has a bright and glistening appeaiance this must
be taken (in accordance with Titn. 67 r) to mean that it
so affects the visual current up to and into the eyes
;
F
themselves (pćxp,t6u 6ppdrav). This account of tlre smooth
rvas accepted by Aristotle also, who says that 'smooth
things have the natural property of shining in the dark,
t
without, however, actuallygiving light r.' Prantl2 says that
the account of colour given in the Timaeus would appear
F
at first to be founded on atomism. Yet, as he points out,
the dynamic import of the two factors-the c yxptrn and
Drdrpror,s-pust be borne in mind ; and it has further to be
remembered that Plato does not really explain the structure
of the elementsatomisticallybut geometrically. His employ-
T ment, however, of the term dripporar,(common to him with
F
, Democritus and Empedocles) indicates on his part a line
of explanation which really throws his dynamic account
of colour into the background. He treats certain colours
as natural to certain things : e. g. red is the colour of blood 3.
So certain colours are naturally connectedwith certain other
I
sensible qualities, e.g. with bitternpssa. In the Tiruaeus
h
and Republic Plato, unlike Democritus 6, regards colours
as actually existing in things, not as having a merely
subjective existence dependent on Qavracta,. The qualita-
tive change (rłtr}.o|r'lors)which is so important in the colour
t
theory of Aristotle plays but a small part in that of Plato.
lVe find, however 7, the change of whiteness into another
h
colour (peroBol) rf,s treuxdr4rosels di,),4uapdau)given as an
example of &tr),oforors, one of the kinds of peroBotr{into
which x(,vąat,s is divisible for Plato as well as for Aristotle.
I
F
!-romthe $ 32. Plato finds in the consideration of colour from
:.ł:.""u:".the Protagoreo-Heraclitean standpoint a suitable illustfa=-
tion of the absence of objectivity in our merely sensible
l'..,lXtl.T?u
'
437'3t. 2 Arist. IIepi Xpap., p.
T
69,
t Tinz. So x,. a T'itn.83 s.
It is another question how far he could really have held any such
.6
view consistently rvith the doctrine of sensible perception set forth, after
Protagoras and Heraclitus, in the Theaetetus: see next paragraph.
L
c Cf . Re!. 1 Theąetet. t8z p.
5o8 c.
E and
VISION J)
experience; and from this standpoint he develops provision- all other
ally a fierce attack upon the fact, or even the conception. ttoilbJ'
of science or objective knowledge of any kind. In thJ llJllillX.tt
course of this discussion a good deal of interesting informa- ]|:h.i,.u
tion is given us as to the degree to which the colour'things')
conception had been analysed by psychologists, and the ?"\rillrrr.
character of colour, as a 'secondary quality,' impressed upon
the popular science of the time. The drippont, of colour
and the elDro).aof things are (it would appear from this
discussion) of such a kind that they consist and exist only
itt.the interaction between object and subject. The object
is only the {uvatrrortxrov. White (}.euxdu)and whiteness
(AeuxdnTs), e. g., are but the product of this interaction, and
last only while it lasts. 'If the doctrine of Heraclitus is
applied to perception, and especially to vision, it will be
found that what we call white colour neither exists in our
eyes nor in any distinct thing existing outside them.
It has not even place or position. To see what colour
really is, if we proceed on the principle of Heraclitus that
" all is becoming," we shall find that white, black, and al!
other colour arises from the eye meeting some appropriate
motion; and that what we call a colour is in each case
neither that which impinges upon, nor that which is
impinged upon, but something which passes-some relatiou
-between them, and is peculiar to each percipient. For
the several colours can scarcely appear to a dog or to any
'
animal as they appear to a human being; nor, indeed, do
they appear to one man as they do to another; or even
to the same man at one time as they do at another. What
happens in the generation of colour is this. The eye and
the appropriate object meet together and give birth to
złl/eiteness on the one side, and, on the other, the sensation
connatural r.vith it, both of which could not have been
produced by either eye or object coming into relation with
aught else; then, when the sight is flowing from the eye,
whitenessproceeds from the object which combines with it
in producing the colour, so that the eye is fulfilled with
pac .
 56 THE FIVE SENSES
and the object which lent its aid to form the colour, is
fulfilled with rvhiteness,and becomes (not whiteness but)
a zł.lhitething, whether wood or stone or whatever the
object may belvhich happens to be coloured white. And
the like is true of all sensible objects, hard, rvarm,and so'
on ; which are similarly to be regarded, not as having any
absolute existence,but as being all of them, of rvhatever
kind, generated by motion in their intercourse rvith one
another ; for of the agent and patient, as existing in
separation,no trustworthy conception can be formed. The
agent has no existence till united rvith the patient, and the
patient none until united with the agent ; and, moreover,
that which by uniting with something becomes an agent, by
meeting with some other thing is converted into a patient.
From all these considerations arises the conclusion that
there is no one self-existent thing, but everything is
becoming and relative. Being must be altogether cast out
of our thoughts, though from habit and ignorance we are
compelled-even in this discussion-to keep the term.
Great philosophers,however, assure us that we should not
allow even the term "something," or " belonging to some-
thing," or " to me," or t'this," or t' that," or any other term
which implies the stationariness of things, to be employed
in the language of nature and truth ; since all things are
being created ancl destroyed,corning into being, and passing
into new forms ; nor can any name fix or detain them ; he
rvho attempts to fix them is easily refuted; and all these
things are true not only of particulars but of classes and
aggregatessuch as are expressed in the general terms made
use of in language1.'
Aristotle.
The object $ 33. Aristotle commences his account of the special
of vision ;
in general
senseswith the sense of sight. According to his custom,
: rcloilr, he examines first the object of seeing. This, stated most
i. e. that
generally, is the uisiÓIe (tłl6par6,)2'or, as he defines it more
which is
I dXXdrpror XpApd.
Jowett'sphraseologyhas for the mostpart beenadopted.
2 the diaphanous in bodies is the uehicle of.
4l8ł z6 seqq. oJ pćv ol,v ćcrt'v Ą d,]ns toit, |orp 6parćv. Seeing, by
a polver common to it and the other senses,perceives contraries: there-
VISION ct
closely, ' that which is seen in the light.' So defined, the seenin the
objectot sight is colour r. This is the most general namel'.{::'"fo'
for the immediate and proper object seen in the light. ieeingper-
Colour, unlike certain oifr"i things 2 (fire and phosp ..- i,"iftittj:
escent substances),cannot be seen in darkness. Hence ;6 how? To
order to understand colour-the object of vision-*. ,nu., ::'l'J:jT.'
obtain a true view of the meclium of vision-light. Colour ffilTfi't
overspreads the surface of all that is visible. Norv every
colour sets up a notiotł in t/le diapltanous nedhtlll betzueen
eaclt colout'ed t/zing and tlte ey uhic/e sees it\, zuhen t/te
sald łrcditłn exlsts actually, not łlerely in potenql. This
is the essenceof colour. By the motion thus set up in the
actualized,i. e, illuminated, diaphanous medium, vision is
normally stirnulated ; not, as was held by Empedocles,
Democritus, and Plato, by droppoa(,or eiDorXo,from the
objects of vision.
$ gł. tn order to understand light, therefore,we must con- Thedia.
sider the nature of the diaphanous, its medium {. This is ' Phanous
thing rvhichis, " nrediutttl
indeed,visible,but not always or directly;lightand
orvilrgits visibility,rvhenit has it, to colour produced i" it Ł|$iiT;.
from without 6. f nstancesof the diaphanous are found in air, nottraocl
'oater, and many solids 6 rvhich are diaphanous or trans- :l'""":::t
;
is here tneant not the alsohttely invisible, but only ołdros (cf. 42Ib 3,
4zztt zo-z) 1 and everr r oxorctvtiyis only pilut 6p yevor (4r8b zg); as
is also rd )liav\,aptpćv, rvhich is dćpatov in a different way from axćros.
Cf. Met, tozzb 34 d|parov )t(yerarxai rQ 6Xarspi ?Xew yp6:paxa)rqr rparlXarr.
I Not that the object of
sight, thus restricted, and colour are ab-
solutely identical. Cf. Phys. zotb 4, Met, lo65b 3z 6atep or)Óć1p6pc
taórby xa\ ćpar6v. Their Xri7ol,as Simplicius says ad loc., are 6ui$opol.
2 As will appear there are three kinds of.6par<i,:(l)
colour (seen only
in light) ; (z) fire (seen both in light and darkness) ; (3) phosphorescent
things (seen only in the dark).
s t6v
1pi,pa xt,v1tt'xćvćart toi xat, ćvćpyenv 8ro{avoOs roi toDt' 3crty
aboi fi $dos, 4t8d 3t,
ł This is at the basis
objective|y of tigltt and colour, and subjec.
tively of aision,
6 Either by fire or by rd ivł,:
a6pa (see note I, p. 58) : 6pardu. . . Di
6 As we shall see (p. 6"),
the colour regarded as rz these bodies; not, like the free diaphanous,