This colour is the first position of the æther as matter, and thus of _fire_. _Fire-colour_ is the first-born, the noblest, highest, fullest, purest; it is the ætherial, cosmic colour. In fire the light is offuscated by gravity, and thereby coloured. 367. The light is not, however, perfected by its position as fire, but is posited also terrestrially. There are therefore terrestrial colours also. 368. There can be only three terrestrial colours, neither more nor less; for there are only three different material or offuscated positions of light. 369. The first terrestrial offuscation of light is the _air_. The colour of the air is thus second in the rank of colours. As the fire-colour plays the chief part in the cosmic and in all colours, so does the air-colour among the terrestrial. It is the highest colour of the planet. 370. The second offuscation of light is water. The colour of water is the third colour. 371. The third offuscation of light is the earth; and this colour is the last, the most ignoble. The colours part into two series, the cosmic or solar, and the terrestrial or planetary. The cosmic is the Red. The first terrestrial is Blue. The second is Green. The third is Yellow. Red alone is worth as much as all the three others taken together. It is the identification of all numbers. Green is merely their synthesis, the terrestrial, finite totality. 372. The genesis of colours is thus the genesis of the elements, or that of matter. It cannot be otherwise; for the becoming of matter is verily an offuscation of light, a coloration. Colour agrees essentially with the elements, and is itself nothing different from element. Fire is in its essence red, as being the impartient of light and heat; air is in its essence nothing else than the blue æther by virtue of its being gaseous; water is the green æther, earth the yellow. If the æther is tensed, it then becomes red or fire; if it attains its blue stage, it becomes air; at the green stage, water, upon the yellow, earth. 373. The elements are only gradations of light, colours. They have therefore been formed according to the laws of light; for colours are without doubt the legitimate developments of light. 374. Red, as being the solar or fire-colour, ranks parallel with oxygen; the more powerful indeed the combustion, the more powerful is the oxydation, and by so much redder the flame. Matters also become red through oxydation. The Red vanishes lastly into White, and thus the highest oxydation is white. 375. The next interchange of Red is with Blue; it becomes red by oxydation, this again blue by desoxydation, but by excessive alkalization and terrification, yellow. It is Red that imparts oxydation, Blue that resolves it and reduces the poles to indifference.