Sed ridiculam me exhibeam, si tales meas nugas
uberius proponem._
[6] _Album quippe & agrum, hoc quidem asperum esse dicit, hoc vero laeve.
de Sensu & Sensib. 3. 3._
[7] Epist. 2. pag. 45.
3. But though in this passage, that very Ingenous Person has Anticipated
part of what I should say; Yet I presume you will for all that expect, that
I should give you a fuller Account of that Notion of Whiteness, which I
have the least Exceptions to, and of the Particulars whence I deduce it,
which to do, I must mention to you the following Experiments and
Observations.
Whiteness then consider'd as a Quality in the Object, seems chiefly to
depend upon this, That the Superficies of the Body that is call'd White, is
Asperated by almost innumerable Small Surfaces, which being of an almost
Specular Nature, are also so Plac'd, that some Looking this way, and some
that way, they yet Reflect the Rays of Light that fall on them, not towards
one another, but outwards towards the Spectators Eye. In this Rude and
General account of Whiteness, it seems that besides those Qualities, which
are common to Bodies of other Colours, as for instance the Minuteness and
Number of the Superficial parts, the two chief things attributed to Bodies
as White are made to be, First, that its Little Protuberances and
Superficial parts be of somewhat a Specular Nature, that they may as little
Looking-glasses each of them Reflect the Beams it receives, (or the little
Picture of the Sun made on it) without otherwise considerably Altering
them; whereas in most other Colours, they are wont to be much Chang'd, by
being also Refracted, or by being Return'd to the Eye, mixt with Shades or
otherwise.
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