Rensselaer Union, Volume 10, Number 47, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 8 August 1878 — Ancient and Modern Eyesight. [ARTICLE]

Ancient and Modern Eyesight.

A curious controversy has lately sprung up in Germany as to whether the eye in the human race has always possessed the same delicacy as at present, and whether men at all epochs have perceived colors as we now distinguish them. Dr. Magnus, an oculist, asserts that primitive man had only a confused notion of tints, and even did nqt recognize them all. Thus, the ancients only saw three colors in the prism instead of the seven which exist, and the sages of the North only speak of three in the rainbow. The most luminous in the spectrum, those which act with most intensity on the retina are red, orange and yellow; blue, indigo and violet only make a feeble impression; green occupies an intermediate rank. Well, throughout the records of antiquity only the red and yellow, so to say, are spoken of. According to Pliny, painters only employed those two colors, with black and white, to produce their finest effects. The most valued tissues were

dyed solely in red and yellow. The knowledge of green does not exist either in Sanscrit literature or Homer, who, in describing the verdure of the country, uses epithets relating to other colors. A savant, M. Geiger, asserts that he has proved that neither in the poems of the Rig-Vqda nor the Aresta, the Bible, the verses of Hemer, the Koran, or the ancient literature of Finland or Scandinavia, is any mention of blue to be found. In fact, no word is to be traced in any of them to designate that color. Therefore, some people must have existed for whom verdure was not green, nor the skies blue. Even at this day, the inhabitants of Burmah have great difficulty in making a distinction between blue and green. , Mr. Gladstone, whose knowledge of Greek <is-well kftown, is wholly of the opinion of. Dr. Magnus. We have -no occasion to say that those views are strongly contested.- Galiqnani's Messenger.

A MAN who, having lost heavily in business, had become morose and illnatured, one day said tohis wife: “ We must sell off some 'of our carriages. Which shall it be?” “My dear,” responded the wife, “you may do as you please so long as you only get rid of the ‘ sulky’ and retain the • sociable.’ ”