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Wayland went to sleep to dream one of those dreams that envelop day with rain-bow mist.
Of greater Moment in the Investigation of the Nature of Colours is the Controversie, Whether those of the Rain-bow, and those that are often seen in Clouds, before the Rising, or after the Setting of the Sun; and in a word, Whether those other Colours, that are wont to be call'd Emphatical, ought or ought not to be accounted True Colours.
For, Pyrophilus, that the proposed Enquiry may be of moment to him that searches after the Nature of Colour, you'l easily grant, if you consider, that whereas Perfectly Opacous bodies can but reflect the incident Beams of Light, those that are Diaphanous are qualified to refract them too, and that Refraction has such a stroak in the Production of Colours, as you cannot but have taken notice of, and perhaps admir'd in the Colours generated by the Trajection of Light through Drops of Water that exhibit a Rain-bow, through Prismatical glasses, and through divers other Transparent bodies.
But 'tis like, Pyrophilus, you'l more easily allow that about this matter 'tis rather Important to have a Certainty, than that 'tis Rational to entertain a Doubt; wherefore I must mention to you some of the Reasons that make me think it may need a further Enquiry, for I find that in a Darkned Room, where the Light is permitted to enter but at One hole, the little wandering Particles of Dust, that are commonly called Motes, and, unless in the Sunbeams, are not taken notice of by the unassisted Sight, I have, I say, often observ'd, that these roving Corpuscles being look'd on by an Eye plac'd on one side of the Beams that enter'd the Little hole, and by the Darkness having its Pupill much Enlarg'd, I could discern that these Motes as soon as they came within the compass of the Luminous, whether Cylinder or Inverted Cone, if I may so call it, that was made up by the Unclouded Beams of the Sun, did in certain positions appear adorn'd with very vivid Colours, like those of the Rain-bow, or rather like those of very Minute, but Sparkling fragments of Diamonds; and as soon as the Continuance of their Motion had brought them to an Inconvenient position in reference to the Light and the Eye, they were only visible without Darting any lively Colours as before, which seems to argue that these little Motes, or minute Fragments, of several sorts of bodies reputed Opacous, and only crumbled as to their Exteriour and Looser parts into Dust, did not barely Reflect the Beams that fell upon them, but remit them to the Eye Refracted too.
London: Printed by Ja: Cottrell for Samuel Speed, at the Rain-Bow in Fleetstreet, near the Inner Temple-Gate. There is no better instance of the fact that books will not live by good works alone than is offered by the utterly neglected heroic novels of the seventeenth century.
Besides, the Sun-beams trajected through a Triangular Glass, after the manner lately mention'd, will, upon the Body that Terminates them, Paint a Rain-bow, that may be seen whether the Eye be plac'd on the Right Hand of it or the Left, or Above or Beneath it, or Before or Behind it; and though there may appear some Little Variation in the Colours of the Rain-bow, beheld from Differing parts of the Room, yet such a Diversity may be also observ'd by an Attentive Eye in Real Colours, look'd upon under the like Circumstances, Nor will it follow, that because there remains no Footsteps of the Colour upon the Object, when the Prism is Remov'd, that therefore the Colour was not Real, since the Light was truly Modify'd by the Refraction and Reflection it Suffer'd in its Trajection through the Prism; and the Object in our case serv'd for a Specular Body, to Reflect that Colour to the Eye.
So this work is destined to assume such proportions that the people of earth may have the privilege of seeing the truth. In the preceding chapter John, as a symbol of the church at this time, under the living ministry symbolized by the rain-bow angel, was told that he "must prophesy again before many peoples, and nations, and tongues, and kings." Verse 11.
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