Section 38. (2) _Color Vision._
Concerning color vision only a few facts will be mentioned: 1. It will
be worth while, first of all, to consider whether color exists. Liebmann
holds that if all the people were blind to red, red would not exist;
red, i.e., is some cervical phantasy. So are light, sound, warmth,
taste, etc. With other senses we have another world. According to
Helmholtz, it is senseless to ask whether cinnabar is red as we see it
or is only so as an optical illusion. “The sensation of red is the
normal reaction of normally constructed eyes to light reflected from
cinnabar. A person blind to red, will see cinnabar as black, or a dark
grayish yellow, and this is the correct reaction for these abnormal
eyes. But he needs to know that his eyes are different from those of
other people. In itself the sensation is neither more correct nor less
correct than any other even though those who can see red are in the
great majority. The red color of cinnabar exists as such only in so far
as there are eyes which are similar to those of the majority of mankind.
As such light reflected from cinnabar may not properly be called red; it
is red only for especial kinds of eyes.” This is so unconditionally
incorrect that an impartial judge of photography says[179] that
everything that normal eyes call violet and blue, is very bright, and
everything they call green and red is very dark. The red-blind person
will see as equal certain natural reds, greens and gray-yellows, both in
intensity and shadow. But on the photograph he will be able to
distinguish the differences in brightness caused by these three
otherwise identical colors. We may, therefore, assume that colors
possess _objective_ differences, and that these objective differences
are perceived even by persons of normal vision. But whether I am able to
sense the same effect in red that another senses, and whether I should
not call red blue, if I had the color-vision of another, is as
impossible to discover as it is useless. When the question of color is
raised, therefore, we will try to discover only whether the person in
question has normal color-vision, or what the nature and degree of his
abnormality may be.
2. It is not unimportant to know whether single tints are recognizable
in the distance. There have been several examinations of this fact.
Aubert[180] constructed double squares of ten millimeters and determined
the angle of vision at which the color as such could be seen. His
results were:
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