Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 43.djvu/838

818 signification with which the word is enriched. Instead of provoking a single idea, each word provokes two—the idea of the object named, and one or several colors; likewise a phrase awakens, besides a collection of images, a series of colors. On hearing the simple words, "I am going into the country," a person with colored audition has a complex image of a trip to the country, and sees besides passing before the eyes of his imagination a succession of colors which in a subject taken at random might resolve itself into white, red, black, red, white, red, red, red, red, white.

This description may lead us to suppose that useless suggestions of color are an obstacle to the march of thought and might sometimes prevent persons from clearly comprehending the meaning of words and of reading. This case, fortunately, has not as yet presented itself; for the bands of colors do not constantly hold the first place in consciousness. When it is necessary to attend to the meaning of the words we neglect the colorations, do not remark them, and no longer perceive them. To perceive them clearly, and particularly to describe them, special attention is usually requisite, contemplation, a state of reverie, or a desire to enjoy the beautiful subjective colors, the appearance of which is usually accompanied by a vivid feeling of pleasure.

Besides the vague, undefined, and formless color-images which are most frequently provoked, the color is perceived by many persons in a form suggested by the vowel and corresponding with its outline. The language commonly used by such persons to describe their impressions does not always take note of this peculiarity. They simply say, "A is red." This means, in the present case, that when one thinks of the letter a he can not represent it otherwise than under the form of a letter painted in red. This variety of colored audition is more refined than the preceding, and also ' more complex; for it can not be found in an illiterate person, and supposes that one knows how to read. Mr. Galton has published five or six observations of this kind with figures.

Persons who have colored audition and who are cognizant of it easily recognize the nature of their subjective impressions. They i regard them as personal associations with nothing mysterious about them, and some even seek for their causes in the most commonplace and trivial circumstances. But if we cause them to describe their way of hearing, we perceive that they involuntarily attribute to these associations much more importance than they] say they do. It appears that most frequently the idea of color! suggested by a word is referred, not to the word itself, but to the! external object designated by the word. There results from this] the interesting consequence that as there are words designating some object of a red color which, on the other hand, provoke by