confessedly Genuine may. But when all this is said, _Pyrophilus_, I must
Advertise you, that it is but Problematically Spoken, and that though I
think the Opinion I have endeavour'd to fortifie Probable, yet a great part
of our Discourse concerning Colours may be True, whether that Opinion be so
or not.

* * * * *

CHAP. V.

1. There are you know, _Pyrophilus_, besides those Obsolete Opinions about
Colours which have been long since Rejected, very Various Theories that
have each of them, even at this day, Eminent Men for its Abetters; for the
Peripatetick Schools, though they dispute amongst themselves divers
particulars concerning Colours, yet in this they seem Unanimously enough to
Agree, that Colours are Inherent and Real Qualities, which the Light doth
but Disclose, and not concurr to Produce. Besides there are _Moderns_, who
with a slight Variation adopt the Opinion of _Plato_, and as he would have
Colour to be nothing but a Kind of Flame consisting of Minute Corpuscles as
it were Darted by the Object against the Eye, to whose Pores their
Littleness and Figure made them congruous, so these would have Colour to be
an Internal Light of the more Lucid parts of the Object, Darkned and
consequently Alter'd by the Various Mixtures of the less Luminous parts.
There are also others, who in imitation of some of the Ancient _Atomists_,
make Colour not to be Lucid steam, but yet a Corporeal _Effluvium_ issuing
out of the Colour'd Body, but the Knowingst of these have of late Reform'd
their Hypothesis, by acknowledging and adding that some External Light is
necessary to Excite, and as _they_ speak, Sollicit these Corpuscles of
Colour as _they_ call them, and Bring them to the Eye. Another and more
principal Opinion of the _Modern_ Philosophers, to which this last nam'd