newton’s theory of the colours of natural bodies explained—objections to it stated—new classification of colours—outline of a new theory proposed.

if the objects of the material world had been illuminated with white light, all the particles of which possessed the same degree of refrangibility, and were equally acted upon by the bodies on which they fall, all nature would have shone with a leaden hue, and all the combinations of external objects, and all the features of the human countenance, would have exhibited no other variety but that which they possess in a pencil sketch or a china-ink drawing. the rainbow itself would have dwindled into a narrow arch of white light,—the stars would have shone through a gray sky,—and the mantle of a wintry twilight would have replaced the golden vesture of the rising and the setting sun. but he who has exhibited such matchless skill in the organization of material bodies, and such exquisite taste in the forms upon which they are modelled, has superadded that ethereal beauty which enhances their more permanent qualities, and presents them to us in the ever-varying colours of the spectrum. without this the foliage of vegetable life might have filled the eye and fostered the fruit which it veils,—but the youthful green of its spring would have been blended with the dying yellow of its autumn. without this the diamond might have displayed to science the beauty of its forms, and yielded to the arts its adamantine virtues;—but it would have ceased to shine in the chaplet of beauty, and to sparkle in the diadem of princes. without this the human countenance might83 have expressed all the sympathies of the heart, but the “purple light of love” would not have risen on the cheek, nor the hectic flush been the herald of its decay.

the gay colouring with which the almighty has decked the pale marble of nature is not the result of any quality inherent in the coloured body, or in the particles by which it may be tinged, but is merely a property of the light in which they happen to be placed. newton was the first person who placed this great truth in the clearest evidence. he found that all bodies, whatever were their peculiar colours, exhibited these colours only in white light. when they were illuminated by homogeneous red light they appeared red, by homogeneous yellow light, yellow, and so on, “their colours being most brisk and vivid under the influence of their own daylight colours.” the leaf of a plant, for example, appeared green in the white light of day, because it had the property of reflecting that light in greater abundance than any other. when it was placed in homogeneous red light, it could no longer appear green, because there was no green light to reflect; but it reflected a portion of red light, because there was some red in the compound green which it had the property of reflecting. had the leaf originally reflected a pure homogeneous green, unmixed with red, and reflected no white light from its outer surface, it would have appeared quite black in pure homogeneous red light, as this light does not contain a single ray which the leaf was capable of reflecting. hence the colours of material bodies are owing to the property which they possess of stopping certain rays of white light, while they reflect or transmit to the eye the rest of the rays of which white light is composed.

so far the newtonian doctrine of colours is capable of rigid demonstration; but its author was not content with carrying it thus far: he sought to84 determine the manner in which particular rays are stopped, while others are reflected or transmitted; and the result of this profound inquiry was his theory of the colours of natural bodies, which was communicated to the royal society on the 10th february, 1675. this theory is perhaps the loftiest of all his speculations; and though, as a physical generalization, it stands on a perishable basis, and must soon be swept away in the progress of science, it yet bears the deepest impress of the grasp of his powerful intellect.

the principles upon which this theory is founded are the following:—

1. bodies that have the greatest refractive powers reflect the greatest quantity of light; and at the confines of equally refracting media there is no reflection.

2. the least particles of almost all natural bodies are in some measure transparent.

3. between the particles of bodies are many pores or spaces, either empty or filled with media of less density than the particles.

4. the particles of bodies and their pores, or the spaces between the particles, have some definite size.

upon these principles newton explains the origin of transparency, opacity, and colour.

transparency he considers as arising from the particles and their intervals or pores being too small to cause reflection at their common surfaces,19 so that all the light which enters transparent bodies passes through them without any portion of it being turned from its path by reflection. if we could obtain, for example, a film of mica whose thickness does not exceed two-thirds of the millionth part of an inch, all the light which fell upon it would pass through it, and none would be reflected. if this film was then85 cut into fragments, a number of such fragments would constitute a bundle, which would also transmit all the light which fell upon it, and be perfectly transparent.

opacity in bodies arises, he thinks, from an opposite cause, viz. when the parts of bodies are of such a size as to be capable of reflecting the light which falls upon them, in which case the light is “stopped or stifled” by the multitude of reflections.

the colours of natural bodies have, in the newtonian hypothesis, the same origin as the colours of thin plates, their transparent particles, according to their several sizes, reflecting rays of one colour, and transmitting those of another. “for if a thinned or plated body which, being of an uneven thickness, appears all over of one uniform colour, should be slit into threads, or broken into fragments of the same thickness with the plate or film, every thread or fragment should keep its colour, and consequently, a heap of such threads or fragments should constitute a mass or powder of the same colour which the plate exhibited before it was broken: and the parts of all natural bodies being like so many fragments of a plate, must, on the same grounds, exhibit the same colour.”

such is the theory of the colours of natural bodies, stated as clearly and briefly as we can. it has been very generally admitted by philosophers, both of our own and of other countries, and has been recently illustrated and defended by a french philosopher of distinguished eminence. that this theory affords the true explanation of certain colours, or, to speak more correctly, that certain colours in natural bodies are the colours of thin plates, cannot be doubted; but it will not be difficult to show that it is quite inapplicable to that great class of phenomena which may be considered as representing the colours of natural bodies.

the first objection to the newtonian theory is the86 total absence of all reflected light from the particles of transparent coloured media, such as coloured gems, coloured glasses, and coloured fluids. this objection was urged long ago by mr. delaval, who placed coloured fluids on black grounds, and never could perceive the least trace of the reflected tints. i have repeated the experiment with every precaution, and with every variation that i could think of, and i consider it as an established fact, that in such coloured bodies the complementary reflected colour cannot be rendered visible. if the fluid, for example, be red, the green light from which the red has been separated ought to appear either directly by looking into the coloured mass, or ought to be recognised by its influence in modifying the light really reflected; but as it cannot be seen, we must conclude that it has not been reflected, but has been destroyed by some other property of the coloured body.

a similar objection may be drawn from the disappearance of the transmitted complementary colour in the leaves of plants and petals of flowers. i have ascertained from numerous experiments, that the transmitted colour is almost invariably the same with the reflected colour, and that the same holds true with the coloured juices expressed from them. the complementary tints are never seen, and wherever there has been any thing like an approximation to two tints, i have invariably found that it arose from there being two different coloured juices existing in different sides of the leaf.

in the phenomena of the light transmitted by coloured glasses, there are some peculiarities which, we think, demonstrate that their colours are not those of thin plates. the light, for example, transmitted through a particular kind of blue glass, has a blue colour of such a peculiar composition that there is no blue in any of the orders of colours in thin plates which has any resemblance to it. it is entirely87 destitute of the red rays which form the middle of the red space in the spectrum; so that the particles on which the colour depends must reflect the middle red rays, and transmit those on each side of it,—a property which cannot be deduced from the newtonian doctrine.

the explanation of opacity, as arising from a multitude of reflections, is liable to the same objection which we have urged against the explanation of colour. in order to appreciate its weight, we must distinguish opacity into two kinds, namely, the opacity of whiteness and the opacity of blackness. those bodies which possess the power of reflection in the highest degree, such as white metals, chalk, and plaster of paris, never reflect more than one-half of the light which falls upon them. the other half of the incident light is, according to newton, lost by a multitude of reflections. but how is it lost? reflection merely changes the direction of the particles of light, so that they must again emerge from the body, unless they are reflected into fixed returning orbits, which detain them for ever in a state of motion within the body. in the case of black opacity, such as that of coal, which reflects from its first surface only 1/25th of the white light, the difficulty is still greater, and we cannot conceive how any system of interior reflections could so completely stifle 24/25ths of the whole incident light, without some of it returning to the eye in a visible form.

in determining the constitution of bodies that produce transparency and blackness, the newtonian theory encounters a difficulty which its author has by no means surmounted. transparency, as we have already seen, arises from the “particles and their interstices being too small to cause reflections in their common surfaces,” that is, they must be “less than any of those which exhibit colours,” or “less than is requisite to reflect the white and very88 faint blue of the first order. but this is the very same constitution which produces blackness by reflection, and in order to explain the cause of blackness by transmission, or black opacity, newton is obliged to introduce a new principle.

“for the production of black,” says he, “the corpuscles must be less than any of those which exhibit colours. for at all greater sizes there is too much light reflected to constitute this colour. but if they be supposed a little less than is requisite to reflect the white and very faint blue of the first order, they will reflect so very little light as to appear intensely black, and yet may perhaps variously refract20 it to and fro within themselves so long, until it happens to be stifled and lost, by which means they will appear black in all positions of the eye, without any transparency.”

this very remarkable passage exhibits, in a striking manner, the perplexity in which our author was involved by the difficulties of his subject. as the particles which produce blackness by reflection are necessarily so small as to exclude the existence of any reflective forces, he cannot ascribe the loss of the intromitted light, as he does in the case of white opacity, to “a multitude of reflections;” and therefore he is compelled to have recourse to refracting forces to perform the same office. the reluctance with which he avails himself of this expedient is well marked in the mode of expression which he adopts; and i am persuaded that when he wrote the above passage, he felt the full force of the objections to this hypothesis, which cannot fail to present themselves. as the size of the particles which produce blackness are intermediate between those89 which produce transparency and those which produce colour, approaching closely to the latter, it is difficult to conceive why they should refract the intromitted light, while the greater and smaller particles, and even those almost of the same size, should be destitute of that property. it is, besides, not easy to understand how a refraction can take place within bodies which shall stifle all the light, and prevent it from emerging. nay, we may admit the existence of such refractions, and yet understand how, by a compensation in their direction, the refracted rays may all emerge from the opaque body.

the force of these objections is tacitly recognised in pemberton’s view of sir isaac newton’s philosophy;21 and as newton not only read and approved of that work, but even perused a great part of it along with its author, we may fairly consider the opinion there stated to be his own.

“for producing black, the particles ought to be smaller than for exhibiting any of the colours, viz. of a size answering to the thickness of the bubble, whereby reflecting little or no light, it appears colourless; but yet they must not be too small, for that will make them transparent through deficiency of reflections in the inward parts of the body, sufficient to stop the light from going through it; but they must be of a size bordering upon that disposed to reflect the faint blue of the first order, which affords an evident reason why blacks usually partake a little of that colour.” in this passage all idea of refraction is abandoned, and that precise degree of size is assumed for the particles which leaves a small power of reflection, which is deemed sufficient to prevent the body from becoming transparent; that is, sufficient to render it opaque or black.

the last objection which we shall state to this theory is one to which we attach great weight, and,90 as it is founded on discoveries and views which have been published since the time of newton, we venture to believe, that, had he been aware of them, he would never have proposed the theory which we are considering.

when light falls upon a thin film such as aec, fig. 9, p. 80, so as to produce the colours of thin plates, it follows, from sir isaac newton’s theory of fits, that a portion of the light is, as usual, reflected at the first surface ae,22 while the light which forms the coloured image is that which is reflected from the second surface ec, so that all the colours of thin plates are diluted with the white light reflected from the first surface. now, in the modern theory, which ascribes the colours of thin plates to the interference of the light reflected from the second surface ec, with the light reflected from the first surface ae, the resulting tint arises from the combination of these two pencils, and consequently there is no white light reflected from the surface ae. in like manner, when the thickness of the film is such that the two interfering pencils completely destroy one another, and produce black, there is not a ray of light reflected from the first surface. here, then, we have a criterion for deciding between the theory of fits and the theory of interference; for if there is no white light reflected from the first surface ae, the theory of fits must be rejected. in a remarkable phenomenon of blackness arising from minute fibres, which i have had occasion to describe, there was no perceptible reflection from the surface of the fibres;23 and m. fresnel describes an experiment made to determine the same point, and states the result of it to91 have been unequivocally in favour of the doctrine of interference.

in order to apply this important fact, let us take a piece of coal, one of the blackest and most opaque of all substances, and which does not reflect to the eye a single ray out of those which enter its substance. the size of its particles is so small, that they are incapable of reflecting light. when a number of these particles are placed together, so as to form a surface, and other particles behind them, so as to form a solid, they will not acquire by this process the power of reflection; and consequently, a piece of coal so composed should be destitute of the property of reflecting light from its first surface. but this is not the case,—light is abundantly reflected from the first surface of the coal, and consequently, its elementary particles must possess the same power. hence the blackness of coal must be ascribed to some other cause than to the minuteness of its transparent atoms.

to transparent bodies this argument has a similar application. as their atoms are still less than those of black bodies, their inability to reflect light is still greater, and hence arises their transparency. but the particles forming the surface of such bodies do reflect light, and, therefore, their transparency must have another origin.

in the case of coloured bodies, too, the particles forming their surfaces reflect white light like those of all other bodies, so that these particles cannot produce colour on the same principles as those of thin plates. in many of those cases of colour which seem to depend upon the minuteness of the particles of the body, the reflection of white light may nevertheless be observed, but this will be found to arise from a thin transparent film, behind which the colorific particles are placed.

whatever answer may be given to these objections, we think it will be admitted by those who92 have studied the subject most profoundly, that a satisfactory theory of the colours of natural bodies is still a desideratum in science. how far we may be able to approach to it in the present state of optics the reader will judge from the following views.

colours may be arranged into seven classes, each of which depends upon different principles.

1. transparent coloured fluids—transparent coloured gems—transparent coloured glasses—coloured powders—and the colours of the leaves and flowers of plants.

2. oxidations on metals—colours of labrador feldspar—colours of precious and hydrophanous opal, and other opalescences—the colours of the feathers of birds, of the wings of insects, and of the scales of fishes.

3. superficial colours, as those of mother-of-pearl and striated surfaces.

4. opalescences and colours in composite crystals having double refraction.

5. colours from the absorption of common and polarized light by doubly refracting crystals.

6. colours at the surfaces of media of different dispersive powers.

7. colours at the surface of media in which the reflecting forces extend to different distances, or follow different laws.

the first two of these classes are the most important. the newtonian theory appears to be strictly applicable to the phenomena of the second class; but those of the first class cannot, we conceive, be referred to the same cause.

* * * * *

the rays of solar light possess several remarkable physical properties: they heat—they illuminate—they promote chymical combination—they effect chymical decompositions—they impart magnetism to steel—they alter the colours of bodies—they93 communicate to plants and flowers their peculiar colours, and are in many cases necessary to the development of their characteristic qualities. it is impossible to admit for a moment that these varied effects are produced by a mere mechanical action, or that they arise from the agitation of the particles of bodies by the vibration of the ether which is considered to be the cause of light. whatever be the difficulties which attach to the theory which supposes light to consist of material particles, we are compelled, by its properties, to admit that light acts as if it were material, and that it enters into combinations with bodies, in order to produce the effects which we have enumerated.

when a beam of light falls upon a body, and the whole or a part of that which enters its substance totally disappears, we are entitled to say, that it is detained by some power exercised by the particles of the body over the particles of light. when this light is said to be lost by a multitude of reflections or refractions, the statement is not only hypothetical, but it is an hypothesis incompatible with optical principles. that the light detained within bodies has been stopped by the attractive force of the particles seems to be highly probable, and the mind will not feel any repugnance to admit that the particles of all bodies, whether solid, fluid, or a?riform, have a specific affinity for the particles of light. considering light, therefore, as material, it is not difficult to comprehend how it should, like other elementary substances, enter into combination with bodies, and produce many chymical and physical effects, but particularly the phenomena of transparency, opacity, and colour.

in transparent colourless bodies, such as water and glass, the intromitted light experiences a considerable loss, because a certain number of its particles are attracted and detained by the atoms of the water or glass, and the light which emerges is94 colourless, because the particles exercise a proportional action over all the simple colours which compose white light.

when the transparent body has any decided colour, such as those enumerated in class i., then the particles of the body have exercised a specific attraction over those rays of white light which are complementary to those which compose the colour of the transmitted light. if the transparent body, for example, is red, then its particles have detained the green rays which entered into the incident light, or certain other rays, which with the red are necessary to compose white light. in compound bodies, like some of the artificial glasses, the particles will attract and detain rays of light of different colours, as may be seen by analyzing the transmitted light with a prism, which will exhibit a spectrum deprived of all the rays which have been detained. in black bodies the particles exercise a powerful attraction over light, and detain all the intromitted rays.

when coloured bodies are opaque, so as to exhibit their colours principally by reflection, the light which is reflected back to the observer has received its colour from transmission through part of the thickness of the body, or, what is the same thing, the colour reflected to the eye is complementary to that which has been detained by the particles of the body while the light is passing and repassing through a thickness terminated by the reflecting surfaces; and as only a part of this light is reflected, as in the case of leaves and flowers, the transmitted light must have the same colour as the reflected light.

when coloured bodies exhibit two different colours complementary to each other, the one seen by reflection and the other by transmission, it is then highly probable that the colours are those of thin plates, though there are still other optical principles to which they may be referred. as the particles of95 bodies, and the medium which unites them, or, as the different atoms of a compound body may have different dispersive powers, while they exercise the same refractive force over a particular part of the spectrum, the rays for which this compensation takes place will be transmitted, while part of the complementary light is reflected.24 or in cases where the refractive and dispersive powers are the same, the reflective forces of the particles may vary according to a different law, so that at the separating surfaces either white or coloured light may be reflected.25

in those cases of colour where the reflected and the transmitted tints are not complementary, as in leaf-gold, where the former is yellow and the latter green;—in leaf-silver, where they are white and blue, and in certain pieces of fir-wood, where the reflected light is whitish yellow, and the transmitted light a brilliant homogeneous red, we may explain the separation of the colours either by the principles we have already laid down or by the doctrine of thin plates. on the first principle, the colour of the reflected light, which is supposed to be the same as that of the transmitted light, will be modified by the law according to which the particles of the body attract different rays out of the beam of white light. in pitch, for example, the blue rays are first absorbed, so that at small thicknesses the transmitted light is a fine yellow, while, by the action of a greater thickness, the yellow itself is absorbed, and the transmitted light is a bright homogeneous red. now in leaf-gold the transmitted colour of thinner films than we can obtain may be yellow, and, consequently, the light reflected from the first strata of interrupting faces will be yellow, and will determine the predominant tint of the reflected light. on the newtonian doctrine, mr. herschel has explained it96 by saying, “that the transmitted rays have traversed the whole thickness of the medium, and therefore undergo many more times the action of its atoms than those reflected, especially those near the first surface to which the brighter part of the reflected colour is due.”

the phenomena of the absorption of common and polarized light, which i have described in another place,26 throw much light on the subject of coloured bodies. the relation of the absorbent action to the axes of double refraction, and, consequently, to the poles of the molecules of the crystal, shows how the particles of light attracted by the molecules of the body will vary, both in their nature and number, according to the direction in which they approach the molecules; and explains how the colour of a body may be changed, either temporarily or permanently, by heat, according as it produces a temporary or a permanent change in the relative position of the molecules. this is not the place to enlarge on this subject; but we may be permitted to apply the idea to the curious experiment of thenard on phosphorus. when this substance is rendered pure by repeated distillation, it is transparent, and transmits yellow light; but when it is thrown in a melted state into cold water, it becomes jet black. when again melted, it resumes its original colour and transparency. according to the newtonian theory, we must suppose that the atoms of the phosphorus have been diminished in size by sudden cooling,—an effect which it is not easy to comprehend; but, according to the preceding views, we may suppose that the atoms of the phosphorus have been forced by sudden cooling into relative positions quite different from those which they take when they slowly assume the solid state, and their poles of maximum attraction, in97 place of being turned to one another, are turned in different directions, and then allowed to exercise their full action in attracting the intromitted light, and detaining it wholly within the body.27

before concluding this chapter, there is one topic peculiarly deserving our notice, namely, the change of colour produced in bodies by continued exposure to light. the general effect of light is to diminish or dilute the colours of bodies, and in many cases to deprive them entirely of their colour. now, it is not easy to understand how repeated undulations propagated through a body could diminish the size of its particles, or how the same effect could be produced by a multitude of reflections from particle to particle. but if light is attracted by the particles of bodies, and combines with them, it is easy to conceive that, when the molecules of a body have combined with a great number of particles of a green colour, for example, their power of combination with others will be diminished, and, consequently, the number of particles of any colour absorbed or detained must diminish with the time that the body has been exposed to light; that is, these particles must enter into the transmitted and reflected pencils, and diminish the intensity of their colour. if the body, for example, absorbs red light, and transmits and reflects green, then if the quantity of absorbed red light is diminished, it will enter into the reflected and transmitted pencils, and, forming white light by its mixture with a portion of the green rays, will actually dilute them in the same manner as if a portion of white light had been added.