Page:A history of the theories of aether and electricity. Whittacker E.T. (1910).pdf/36

 Cambridge by the intervening Plague"; this was in 1666, and his memoir on the subject was not presented to the Royal Society until five years later, In it he propounds a theory of colour directly opposed to that of Hooke. "Colours," he says, "are not Qualifications of light derived from Refractions, or Reflections of natural Bodies (as 'tis generally believed), but Original and connate properties, which in divers Rays are divers. Some Rays are disposed to exhibit a red colour and no other: some a yellow and no other, some a green and no other, and so of the rest. Nor are there only Rays proper and particular to the more eminent colours, but even to all their intermediate gradations.

"To the same degree of Refrangibility ever belongs the same colour, and to the same colour ever belongs the same degree of Refrangibility:"

“The species of colour, and degree of Refrangibility proper to any particular sort of Rays, is not mutable by Refraction, nor by Reflection from natural bodies, nor by any other cause, that I could yet observe. When any one sort of Rays hath been well parted from those of other kinds, it hath afterwards obstinately retained its colour, notwithstanding my utmost endeavours to change it."

The publication of the new theory gave rise to an acute controversy. As might have been expected, Hooke was foremost among the opponents, and led the attack with some degree of asperity. When it is remembered that at this time Newton was at the outset of his career, while Hooke was an older man, with an established reputation, such harshness appears particularly ungenerous; and it is likely that the unpleasant consequences which followed the announcement of his first great discovery had much to do with the reluctance which Newton ever afterwards showed to publish his results to the world.

In the course of the discussion Newton found occasion to explain more fully the views which he entertained regarding the nature of light. Hooke charged him with holding the