. Our senses series; . ve gone dead and cold centuries be-fore we see them. The colorless or white light that we get fromthe sun seems to us to be a simple and unanalyz-able sensation, and yet all our color sensations canbe obtained from the analyzing of white lightinto its component waves. White or colorlesslight is simple psychologically but extremely com-plex physically. It is a complex wave, resultantof many vibrations of ether molecules at differentrates. The total wave of white light, or indeedof any colored light, moves forward at the uni-form rate of 186,000 miles a second, although 26
. Our senses series; . ve gone dead and cold centuries be-fore we see them. The colorless or white light that we get fromthe sun seems to us to be a simple and unanalyz-able sensation, and yet all our color sensations canbe obtained from the analyzing of white lightinto its component waves. White or colorlesslight is simple psychologically but extremely com-plex physically. It is a complex wave, resultantof many vibrations of ether molecules at differentrates. The total wave of white light, or indeedof any colored light, moves forward at the uni-form rate of 186,000 miles a second, although 26 THE SENSE OF SIGHT the transverse vibrations differ in length and ra-pidity. Light waves tend to move in straight lines fromthe original centers, unless diverted, reflected, ab-sorbed, or dispersed by coming into contact withsome other kinds of molecules. The pure whitelight that seems to be simple in quality to oursenses is really, as we have said, extremely com-plex, and can be analyzed physically by a trian- gular prism into all the colors of the there are vibrations at many rates in the so-called waves of white light, when such a ray isthrown onto a triangular prism the componentwaves are differently refracted or bent (see ), hence they are separated and may be seen on ascreen as spectral colors, in the order of their re-frangibility. The red ray is least diverted, andthe colors appear in a certain order up to violet —red, orange, yellow, blue, indigo-blue, violet^ th§ LIGHT AND COLOR SEEING 27 violet being the ray whose molecules vibrate theshortest distance and the fastest. Hence the dif-ferent colors that are seen are caused by the dif-ferent rates of the vibration of ether waves persecond. What is quality in our senses is onlyquantity or number of ether vibrations in the outerworld, and there is no possible likeness betweenether vibrations at the rate, for example, of threehundred and ninety-two trillion vibrations of ethermolecules per se
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