In such cases the unclassed colour is, by the Wernerians,
defined by stating it as intermediate between two others:
thus we have an object described as _between emerald-green
and grass-green_. The eye is capable of perceiving a
gradation from one colour to another; such as may be
produced by a gradual mixture in various ways. And if we
image to ourselves such a mixture, we can compare with it a
given colour. But in employing this method we have nothing
to tell us in what part of the scale we must seek for an
approximation to our unclassed colour. We have no rule for
discovering where we are to look for the boundaries of the
definition of a colour which the Wernerian series does not
supply. For it is not always between contiguous members of
the series that the undescribed colour is found. If we place
emerald-green between apple-green and grass-green, we may
yet have a colour intermediate between emerald-green and
leek-green; and, in fact, the Wernerian series of colours is
destitute {344} of a principle of self-arrangement and
gradation; and is thus necessarily and incurably imperfect.
8. We should have a complete Scale of Colours, if we could
form a series including all colours, and arranged so that
each colour was intermediate in its tint between the
adjacent terms of the series; for then, whether we took many
or few of the steps of the series for our standard terms,
the rest could be supplied by the law of continuity; and any
given colour would either correspond to one of the steps of
our scale or fall between two intermediate ones. The
invention of a Chromatometer for Impure Colours, therefore,
requires that we should be able to form all possible colours
by such intermediation in a systematic manner; that is, by
the mixture or combination of certain elementary colours
according to a simple rule: and we are led to ask whether
such a process has been shown to be possible.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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