Works of Grant Allen

by Grant Allen

  Note. — At the conclusion of the present portion of my work which deals with the colour-sense in lower animals, it may be well to point out what are the chief instances of organic colouration which the theories here adopted leave yet unexplained. They may be briefly summed up under three heads. The first includes the radiate animals, and such other marine creatures as the sea-slugs and some of the lower articulates. It is possible that the colours in these cases may be purely adventitious, depending entirely, like the green of leaves, on the chemical constitution of the pigmentary substance, and subserving no special function as colours. This is particularly likely in the case of deep-sea organisms, living at a depth where little or no light can ever penetrate. (See Sir Wyville Thomson’s “Depths of the Sea,” passim, and especially p, 466.) Nevertheless, animals found under such circumstances occasionally possess very large and striking eyes (see, for example, the figure of Cystosoma Neptuni in Sir W. Thomson’s “Voyage of the Challenger,” ), so that the colours may perhaps be protective. Upon this difficult subject the reader may consult Mr. Moseley’s interesting papers, where the colours of deep-sea organisms are explained as survivals of a habit originally acquired for protective purposes in shoal water. The second class includes the shells of Mollusca. At present, I see no other explanation of their colours save that they are purely adventitious; but this last refuge must only be regarded as provisional, since fresh facts or suggestions are continually coming to light, which enable us to discover some functional reason for what at first sight appeared purely accidental. The third class includes the eggs of birds. And here I am disposed to allege as a possible explanation that the colouration may act as a supplementary allurement to the instinct of incubation, just as sexual colours act as a supplementary allurement to the instinct of reproduction. This theory will seem less far-fetched when we recollect the fact that the eggs of reptiles, usually abandoned by the mother, are generally quite dingy in their coverings, while those of birds, forming objects of such great parental solicitude, are almost always more or less beautiful in their hues. And if we put these indications beside the other marks of æsthetic feeling in birds — their song, colour, dermal adjuncts, ornamental nests, bowers, and occasional habit of abstracting brilliant objects — the theory certainly gains in verisimilitude. On the other hand, it must always be remembered that the occurrence of colour never really demands an explanation in organic bodies, any more than it does in the ruby, the sapphire, or the emerald.

  For further details upon the colouration of animals the reader must be referred to Mr. Wallace’s admirable work on “Tropical Nature.”

  CHAPTER XI.

  THE COLOUR-SENSE IN MAN.

  We have now completed our survey of the colour-sense in animals generally, and we come to consider its manifestation in man.

  If the conclusion to which we have been led in our previous investigation be correct, if all the higher animals, and amongst them the quadrumana, be endowed with a perception of colour substantially the same as our own, then it will naturally follow that man, the descendant of an advanced quadrumanous type, must have possessed the same faculty from the very earliest period of his separate history. The colour-sense must be a common property of all mankind, in every country, and in every age.

  Here, however, we are confronted by the adverse theory of Mr. Gladstone and Dr. Hugo Magnus, who endeavour to convince us, on the contrary, that the sense of colour is quite a late and post-historical acquisition of the human race. From philological evidence in the Vedas, in the Hebrew scriptures, and in the Homeric poems, they conclude that some three thousand years ago the foremost tribes of the Semitic and Aryan races were incapable of distinguishing between red, blue, green, and yellow. Starting from such an imaginary primitive state, they trace up the development of the colour-sense through the succeeding ages, marking out four principal stages in the growth of the perception. All this startling theory they set forth on purely philological grounds. I shall briefly give the main points of their hypothesis, almost in the very words of Mr. Gladstone.

  The starting-point is an absolute blindness to colour in the primitive man. Thence, in the progressive education of the organ, three chief colours have been successively disclosed to it, and have appeared in the order of their greater or less refrangibility — red, green, violet. The first stage attained is that at which the eye becomes able to distinguish between red and black. Red comes first into our perceptions, because it is the most luminous of the colours; but, says Geiger, in the Rigveda white and red are hardly severed. In the next stage of the development, the sense of colour becomes completely distinct from the sense of light. Both red and yellow with their shades (including orange) are now clearly discerned. To this stage Magnus refers the Homeric poems, in which red and yellow colours are set forth, while no mention is made (according to these authorities) of green or blue. The characteristic of the third stage is the recognition of colours which in point of luminousness belong to neither extreme, but are in a mean, namely, green with its varieties. Finally, in the fourth stage of the development, we find an acquaintance with blue begins to emerge. This is a stage not even now reached universally; for example, in Burma (it is alleged by Bastian) a striking confusion between blue and green is a perfectly common phenomenon, and a like confusion is not unusual among ourselves by candle light.

  Of course, the first point which strikes an evolutionist on being confronted with this elaborate theory is the utter inadequacy of the time assigned for the origin of such strong and fundamentally differentiated sensations as those of colour. Had Dr. Magnus said three million, or even thirty million years, the evolutionist could have hesitated on the score of insufficient elbow-room; but when our author suggests three thousand years for the growth of a radically separate set of sentient organs, our incredulity becomes absolute and irrevocable. It would be useless, however, to oppose the doctrine on such purely a priori grounds, only efficient for those who accept the general hypothesis of evolution: and we must therefore seek to discover what a posteriori arguments can be urged on the other side, against the philological evidence of Mr. Gladstone and Dr. Magnus.

  There are two kinds of proof for the universality of the colour-sense in man which we may offer in opposition. The first method consists in showing that all human races at the present day, including the lowest savages, do actually possess just the same sense of colour as ourselves: whence we may argue with considerable probability that they derive that sense from a common ancestor, and that the Homeric Akhaians were not likely to be destitute of perceptions possessed by the Bushmen, the Australians, and the hill-tribes of India. The second method consists in showing that works of art and other remains of the early historical races or of prehistoric man yield evidence that the colour-sense was fully developed long before the epoch of the Iliad or the Book of Genesis. Both these methods of proof we shall employ here.

  In order to discover what was the present state of colour-perception amongst existing savage races, I had recourse to two plans. In the first place, I consulted a large number of works by travellers and others respecting modern savages, and extracted all passages which bore upon the question at issue. And in the second place, I supplemented the information thus obtained by direct inquiries upon the subject, addressed to missionaries, government officials, and other persons working amongst the most uncivilised races. I printed a circular letter, which I forwarded to various parts of the world, requesting numbered answers to the following questions: —

  “(1.) What is the race to whom your answers refer?

  (2.) How many colours can they distinguish?

  (3.) Can they distinguish between blue and green?

  (4.) Can they distinguish between blue and violet?

  (5.) Can they distinguish any mixed or intermediate shades, such as mauve, lilac, orange, and purple?

  (6.) For how many colours have they names in their language?

  (7.) Have they separate names for green and blue?

  (8.) Have they separ
ate names for blue and violet?

  (9.) How many colours do they discriminate in the rainbow?

  (10.) What pigments do they employ in personal decoration or in ornament?

  (11.) Have they a separate name for each pigment?

  (12.) Have they separate names for any colour for which they have no pigment?”

  To these questions I received a large number of courteous answers, from Europe, Asia, Africa, America, and the Pacific Islands; and I may as well say at once that they bore out in every case the supposition that the colour-sense is, as a whole, absolutely identical throughout all branches of the human race. As it would be tedious, however, to print all the answers in full, as numbered, in a tabular form, I shall give the whole evidence together, remarking in each case whether my information was derived from books or from a correspondent.

  I shall also premise that, lest there should be any suspicion that I myself was deficient in colour-perception, I rigorously tested my own powers with all the objective experiments I could hear of or devise, including Dr. Stilling’s Tables for the Examination of the Colour-Sense, and many like careful tests. The result proved beyond doubt that my eyes were perfectly normal, and possessed at least quite the full average faculties of colour discrimination.

  Probably nobody will deny that the ordinary European nations, and the Chinese, Japanese, and Hindus in Asia, have colour-perceptions identical with our own. The mere inspection of their works of art, and especially of their imitative paintings, clearly shows that they perceive and represent external objects of the same hue as ourselves. I shall therefore pass them over without further proof, and proceed to examine the various lower races, beginning with the most advanced among them, and ending with the most degraded of all.

  The North American Indians, as I can testify from personal experience, make use of pigments for the three so-called primary colours, and also for green, orange, and purple. My father, Mr. J. A. Allen of Kingston, Ontario who kindly undertook to distribute my circulars in America, thus describes some Indian art products of the unsophisticated north-western tribes. “While I write, I have before me some leggings and mocassins, made by Indians of the far west — so far off as to be hardly reached by the last outskirts of our civilisation. In these, the lines of colour are never confused — never fail to correspond, or run into one another. The leggings have ornaments in white, dark blue and pale blue, dark green and pale green, and yellow, on a scarlet ground with a black edge. There are also on the mocassins pale blue, purple, brown, green, pink, and solferino, on a buff ground, with a strip of scarlet binding. The pattern is strictly symmetrical: each colour being introduced at exactly the same angle or portion of the pattern throughout — not a confused mass of colours. They were brought . . . from the Chippewa Indians, 750 miles north-west of Kingston.” Mr. P. B. Bell answers my questions with regard to the Ojibways in similar language. They can clearly distinguish between blue and green, and also between blue and violet, though they have no distinctive name for the latter colour. They have, however, no less than seven different colour-names, including separate words for green and blue. Other correspondents mention like facts of other tribes. In all, the power of discrimination seems quite equal to our own, though the nomenclature generally extends only to the four or five most markedly different colours — a point to which we shall return in a later chapter.

  The evidence with regard to the historical races of North and South America is equally strong. The ancient Mexicans were famed for their mosaic of feather work, and their subtle taste in colour is praised by several competent Spanish authorities. I have satisfied myself, by personal observation of Mexican works of art, that they clearly distinguished all the colours mentioned by Mr. Gladstone. The Yucatanese “painted their bodies red,” but the children whom they offered as victims to their gods were anointed blue. Stephens says that their principal colours were red, green, yellow, and blue; while Catherwood praises their harmonious blending of various hues. The Chibchas, we are frequently told, had a special taste for emeralds and other green stones, which is scarcely consistent with the idea that they could not see their colour. The Peruvians, according to Garcilasso, were “very fond of vermilion red;” but they too had a particular fancy for turquoises, emeralds, and crystals. It is specially noticed that Atahuallpa wore a collar of large emeralds. Mr. Clements R. Markham informs me that the Peruvian language had separate words for green and blue; and in one of his published works he mentions that the people “knew the secret of fixing the dyes of all colours, — flesh-colour, yellow, grey, blue, green, black.” Their pottery also receives high commendation as “remarkable for harmony of colour.” So that, on the whole, we may credit all the semi-civilised American races, not only with a proper colour-sense, but also with considerable artistic sensibility.

  Even of the wretched Fuegians I find it noticed that red is their favourite colour, and that they paint their faces with red, black, or white.

  Passing over to Africa, we meet with evidence of a similar sort. The Rev. A. R. M. Wilshere of Robbins Island, Cape of Good Hope, obligingly answered my questions with regard to four South African tribes, Korannas, Hottentots, Makatese, and Mozambiques. In every case, he found by personal inquiry that all recognised colours were discriminated in just the same manner as by Europeans. Every one of these tribes can distinguish between blue and green, as well as between blue and violet; and they possess names for six separate colours, including green and blue, but not violet; yet as they can see the latter colour, the deficiency here is simply one of nomenclature. In one case, a Mozambique had no native word for purple, which is wanting in his own language, but had learnt the name in Dutch, and applied it correctly. Mr. Wilshere is of opinion that the Africans he examined could discriminate just as many colours in the rainbow as he could himself.

  A lady, whose name I have no authority to publish, gives me a very clear account of the Bushmen, derived from immediate inquiry, and marked by a careful and conscientious accuracy which could not sufficiently be indicated without transcribing her letter in full. The members of this race can undoubtedly distinguish red, yellow, green, blue, violet, purple, and orange. Their colour vocabulary is unusually full; for besides names for the common primaries, “there are also various compound names, where the names of two colours are used together; as well as further names for at least five (and probably more) shades of colour; — for instance, for light purple, for lavender and grey, for stone-colour, for brownish green, and for blue green.” At a meeting of the Royal Society of Edinburgh, in January 1878, Bishop Cotterell, formerly of Grahamstown, gave a similar account of this race, whose colour-perception he believed to be quite as acute as our own. Some of their paintings, which have been exhibited in this country, fully bear out the truth of both statements.

  With regard to the common negro types, my own observations made upon West Coast Africans in Jamaica (not born in the West Indies, but taken from Africa direct), convinced me that they could perfectly discriminate all colours as well as myself. The ordinary negro women possess the same abundant vocabulary, as regards the colours used in dress, which distinguishes their sex in Europe. Nevertheless, to make assurance doubly sure, I append a few references to their pigments and works of art in a native state. The Congo people paint themselves with red ochre, and the Mandingoes dye cloth blue with indigo. The huts on the lower Niger are stained blue and white. The inland negroes dye their hair bright blue. Indeed, throughout all Central, Western, and Northern Africa, where indigo exists, it appears to form a favourite pigment. The Ashantis use red, blue, yellow, and green. The Bushmen paint themselves with red ochre, while among the favourite beads of the Bechuanas, Burchell mentions light blue. Other instances might be adduced by the dozen; but it will be better simply to refer the reader to Mr. Spencer’s great collection, or to any manufacturer of trading beads.

  The Rev. F. A. Gregory of Antananarivo informs me that the Malagasy people distinguish accurately between all colours, and have separate names for no le
ss than thirteen hues.

  Among the hill tribes of India, colour-perception seems to exist in exactly similar perfection. Mr. Adarji Jivanji, Deputy-Collector at Maldha, answers my questions with regard to the Chondras, Gámtas, Dublas, and Bhils. These aborigines can certainly distinguish between blue, green, and violet, though not possessing separate names for each. Other observers return similar answers for the Nágás, Gonds, and like lowest races. In every case, discrimination seems perfect, vocabulary only being at fault. My friend, Dr. W. W. Hunter, Director-General of Statistics for India, in his “Comparative Dictionary of the Languages of India and High Asia,” gives the words for green, red, and black in 107 Non-Aryan dialects, including those of the Todas, Khonds, Uráons, Kols, Gonds, Santáls, Nágás, Garos, and other low-type aborigines. There is also abundant practical evidence that these races discriminate blue, which, according to Mr. Gladstone and Dr. Magnus, represents the highest stage of colour-perception. The Kukis dye cloth with indigo. The Nágás wear blue kilts, and cotton dyed with indigo, as well as white cloth, with red and blue fringes. The Todas embroider their mantles with blue thread. The Santáls use strips of red, blue, and yellow cloth. The Karennees of Burma wear red and blue clothing. Here, again, only the necessary limit of space prevents the multiplication of instances, but many hundreds could be given if required, to exactly the same effect.