Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 59.djvu/63

Rh applying the conclusions arrived at in the case of Murray Island to all existing races whose color nomenclature is defective, and still less so in applying them directly to the races of the past. Nevertheless, the fact remains that, in the only race which has been investigated with any degree of completeness, the characteristic defect in color language has been found to be associated with a corresponding defect in color sense.

There are other sources from which evidence on the evolution of the color sense in man may be derived. It has already been mentioned that at an early stage in the controversy the evidence of ancient monuments was brought forward against the views of Gladstone and Geiger. It was pointed out that, long before the time of Homer, green and blue pigments were used in Egyptian sculpture and decorations. In the Berlin Museum there is a palette with seven depressions, which appear to have been used for seven colors, white, black, red, yellow, green, a bright blue and a dark color which may have been either blue or brown. Indeed, blue appears to have been the predominant color of Egyptian pottery, and blue and green beads have been found in the graves of the prehistoric Egyptian race. Green and blue appear also to have been used in the decoration of the ancient Assyrians and Chaldeans. Greek architecture has also been found in Thera, Tiryns and Mycenæ of a date earlier than that of Homer, in which the colors used include blue.

Mr. Bénaky, of Smyrna, has recently collected the evidence derived from the coloration of ancient monuments, and believes that it decisively disproves the existence of any defect of color vision of the ancient Egyptians and Greeks. Two considerations must, however, be borne in mind when dealing with evidence of this kind. In the first place, it may be conceded that the monuments of the Egyptians show that these people had a perfectly developed color sense, and yet the color sense of the Greeks one thousand years or more later may have been defective. Just as we find different races at the present day in different stages of evolution as regards color, so it may have been three or four thousand years ago. The state of the color sense of the Egyptians has no direct bearing on that of the Greeks. It is a point of interest that the high development of the color sense in the ancient Egyptians, as shown by their decorations, appears to have been accompanied by a corresponding development of language, for it is stated that in the ancient Egyptian language there were two words for green and one for blue.