Now, whilst Bodies become coloured by reflecting or transmitting this or that sort of Rays more copiously than the rest, it is to be conceived that they stop and stifle in themselves the Rays which they do not reflect or transmit. For, if Gold be foliated and held between your Eye and the Light, the Light looks of a greenish blue, and therefore massy Gold lets into its Body the blue-making Rays to be reflected to and fro within it till they be stopp'd and stifled, whilst it reflects the yellow-making outwards, and thereby looks yellow. And much after the same manner that Leaf Gold is yellow by reflected, and blue by transmitted Light, and massy Gold is yellow in all Positions of the Eye; there are some Liquors, as the Tincture of Lignum Nephriticum, and some sorts of Glass which transmit one sort of Light most copiously, and reflect another sort, and thereby look of several Colours, according to the Position of the Eye to the Light. But, if these Liquors or Glasses were so thick and massy that no Light could get through them, I question not but they would like all other opake Bodies appear of one and the same Colour in all Positions of the Eye, though this I cannot yet affirm by Experience. For all colour'd Bodies, so far as my Observation reaches, may be seen through if made sufficiently thin, and therefore are in some measure transparent, and differ only in degrees of Transparency from tinged transparent Liquors; these Liquors, as well as those Bodies, by a sufficient Thickness becoming opake. A transparent Body which looks of any Colour by transmitted Light, may also look of the same Colour by reflected Light, the Light of that Colour being reflected by the farther Surface of the Body, or by the Air beyond it. And then the reflected Colour will be diminished, and perhaps cease, by making the Body very thick, and pitching it on the backside to diminish the Reflexion of its farther Surface, so that the Light reflected from the tinging Particles may predominate. In such Cases, the Colour of the reflected Light will be apt to vary from that of the Light transmitted. But whence it is that tinged Bodies and Liquors reflect some sort of Rays, and intromit or transmit other sorts, shall be said in the next Book. In this Proposition I content my self to have put it past dispute, that Bodies have such Properties, and thence appear colour'd.
PROP. XI. Prob. VI.
By mixing colour'd Lights to compound a beam of Light of the same Colour and Nature with a beam of the Sun's direct Light, and therein to experience the Truth of the foregoing Propositions.
Fig. 16.
Let ABC abc [in Fig. 16.] represent a Prism, by which the Sun's Light let into a dark Chamber through the Hole F, may be refracted towards the Lens MN, and paint upon it at p, q, r, s, and t, the usual Colours violet, blue, green, yellow, and red, and let the diverging Rays by the Refraction of this Lens converge again towards X, and there, by the mixture of all those their Colours, compound a white according to what was shewn above. Then let another Prism DEG deg, parallel to the former, be placed at X, to refract that white Light upwards towards Y. Let the refracting Angles of the Prisms, and their distances from the Lens be equal, so that the Rays which converged from the Lens towards X, and without Refraction, would there have crossed and diverged again, may by the Refraction of the second Prism be reduced into Parallelism and diverge no more. For then those Rays will recompose a beam of white Light XY. If the refracting Angle of either Prism be the bigger, that Prism must be so much the nearer to the Lens. You will know when the Prisms and the Lens are well set together, by observing if the beam of Light XY, which comes out of the second Prism be perfectly white to the very edges of the Light, and at all distances from the Prism continue perfectly and totally white like a beam of the Sun's Light. For till this happens, the Position of the Prisms and Lens to one another must be corrected; and then if by the help of a long beam of Wood, as is represented in the Figure, or by a Tube, or some other such Instrument, made for that Purpose, they be made fast in that Situation, you may try all the same Experiments in this compounded beam of Light XY, which have been made in the Sun's direct Light. For this compounded beam of Light has the same appearance, and is endow'd with all the same Properties with a direct beam of the Sun's Light, so far as my Observation reaches. And in trying Experiments in this beam you may by stopping any of the Colours, p, q, r, s, and t, at the Lens, see how the Colours produced in the Experiments are no other than those which the Rays had at the Lens before they entered the Composition of this Beam: And by consequence, that they arise not from any new Modifications of the Light by Refractions and Reflexions, but from the various Separations and Mixtures of the Rays originally endow'd with their colour-making Qualities.
So, for instance, having with a Lens 4-1/4 Inches broad, and two Prisms on either hand 6-1/4 Feet distant from the Lens, made such a beam of compounded Light; to examine the reason of the Colours made by Prisms, I refracted this compounded beam of Light XY with another Prism HIK kh, and thereby cast the usual Prismatick Colours PQRST upon the Paper LV placed behind. And then by stopping any of the Colours p, q, r, s, t, at the Lens, I found that the same Colour would vanish at the Paper. So if the Purple p was stopp'd at the Lens, the Purple P upon the Paper would vanish, and the rest of the Colours would remain unalter'd, unless perhaps the blue, so far as some purple latent in it at the Lens might be separated from it by the following Refractions. And so by intercepting the green upon the Lens, the green R upon the Paper would vanish, and so of the rest; which plainly shews, that as the white beam of Light XY was compounded of several Lights variously colour'd at the Lens, so the Colours which afterwards emerge out of it by new Refractions are no other than those of which its Whiteness was compounded. The Refraction of the Prism HIK kh generates the Colours PQRST upon the Paper, not by changing the colorific Qualities of the Rays, but by separating the Rays which had the very same colorific Qualities before they enter'd the Composition of the refracted beam of white Light XY. For otherwise the Rays which were of one Colour at the Lens might be of another upon the Paper, contrary to what we find.
So again, to examine the reason of the Colours of natural Bodies, I placed such Bodies in the Beam of Light XY, and found that they all appeared there of those their own Colours which they have in Day-light, and that those Colours depend upon the Rays which had the same Colours at the Lens before they enter'd the Composition of that beam. Thus, for instance, Cinnaber illuminated by this beam appears of the same red Colour as in Day-light; and if at the Lens you intercept the green-making and blue-making Rays, its redness will become more full and lively: But if you there intercept the red-making Rays, it will not any longer appear red, but become yellow or green, or of some other Colour, according to the sorts of Rays which you do not intercept. So Gold in this Light XY appears of the same yellow Colour as in Day-light, but by intercepting at the Lens a due Quantity of the yellow-making Rays it will appear white like Silver (as I have tried) which shews that its yellowness arises from the Excess of the intercepted Rays tinging that Whiteness with their Colour when they are let pass. So the Infusion of Lignum Nephriticum (as I have also tried) when held in this beam of Light XY, looks blue by the reflected Part of the Light, and red by the transmitted Part of it, as when 'tis view'd in Day-light; but if you intercept the blue at the Lens the Infusion will lose its reflected blue Colour, whilst its transmitted red remains perfect, and by the loss of some blue-making Rays, wherewith it was allay'd, becomes more intense and full. And, on the contrary, if the red and orange-making Rays be intercepted at the Lens, the Infusion will lose its transmitted red, whilst its blue will remain and become more full and perfect. Which shews, that the Infusion does not tinge the Rays with blue and red, but only transmits those most copiously which were red-making before, and reflects those most copiously which were blue-making before. And after the same manner may the Reasons of other Phænomena be examined, by trying them in this artificial beam of Light XY.