Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 39.djvu/385

Rh "Thought and reason seem to give but little assistance in determining the character of any word. It is, however, noticeable that the more attention that is given to the subject in general, the clearer do all words shine out. These shades and colors are permanent. A word or symbol seems to have a peculiar and individual character which never changes.

"A student of mine, Mr. C. E. Mead, of Ramelton, who had never before heard of the subject, has spent some time examining me and recording the results.

"If one should wish to divide all visible objects into classes on a basis of the lightness or darkness of their shades of color, he would find some manifestly very light, almost white; others very dark, almost black; others would be of intermediate shades. Let him call all that are very light, 1; all that are very dark, 5; then 2, 3, and 4 would indicate intermediate shades. Some objects would easily be seen to belong to certain classes. Others, even with the aid of contemporaneous examination, would be very difficult to locate. It is convenient to divide words into classes upon the same basis, indicating their degrees of shade by numbers, letting 1 represent very light words, 5 very dark ones, and 2, 3, and 4 the intermediate shades.

"A newspaper article containing fifty words was taken, and a number representing the degree of shade was assigned to each. After two weeks, Mr. Mead returned to me the same list of words, and numbers were reassigned. Out of the list, instead of ten, which the law of chance would indicate would be the same, thirty-four were identical. In no case was there a variation of more than one degree. For example, no word which bore number three in the first test was given number one in the last, nor vice versa. Colors were assigned to twenty-one out of forty names and characters. Two weeks later the same colors were reassigned to all but one.

"I do not know how these distinctions are made. I am not conscious of obtaining them by application of any rules or principles. "When a word is presented, it is felt to be light or dark, black or yellow, and the mind declares it to be such with little thought or delay, and apparently in the same manner as the pitch and quality of musical sounds are judged.

"My own experience has been so vivid and persistent that I could not doubt that there were reason and law as the basis of the matter. Yet I could not and did not expect that a theory of word color would be able to find credence as the result of my single testimony.

"Whether or not there is any significance in the fact, nearly all who perceive color in words have made the first discovery in early childhood.