Experiments and Considerations Touching Colours | Page 3

of flowers and
leaves, and the putrifaction (and its several degrees) of fruits, &c.
together with a thousand other obvious Instances of the changes of
colours. Nor have I much medled with those familiar Phænomena
wherein man is not an Idle spectator; such as the Greenness produc'd by
salt in Beef much powder'd, and the Redness produc'd in the shells of
Lobsters upon the boyling of those fishes; For I was willing to leave the
gathering of Observations to those that have not the Opportunity to
make Experiments. And for the same Reasons, among others, I did
purposly omit the Lucriferous practise of Trades-men about colours; as
the ways of making Pigments, of Bleanching wax, of dying Scarlet, &c.
though to divers of them I be not a stranger, and of some I have myself
made Tryall.
Next; I did purposely pass by divers Experiments of other Writers that I
had made Tryall of (and that not without registring some of their
Events) unless I could some way or other improve them, because I
wanted leasure to insert them, and had thoughts of prosecuting the
work once begun of laying together those I had examin'd by themselves
in case of my not being prevented by others diligence. So that there
remains not a little, among the things that are already published, to
imploy those that have a mind to exercise themselves in repeating and
examining them. And I will not undertake, that none of the things

deliver'd, ev'n in this Treatise, though never so faithfully set down, may
not prove to be thus farr of this Sort, as to afford the Curious somewhat
to add about them. For I remember that I have somewhere in the Book
it self acknowledged, that having written it by snatches, partly in the
Counntrey, and partly at unseasonable times of the year, when the want
of fit Instruments, and of a competent variety of flowers, salts,
Pigments, and other materials made me leave some of the following
Experiments, (especialy those about Emphatical Colours) far more
unfinish'd than they should have been, if it had been as easie for me to
supply what was wanting to compleat them, as to discern. Thirdly to
avoyd discouraging the young Gentleman I call Pyrophilus, whom the
less Familiar, and more Laborious operations of Chymistry would
probably have frighted, I purposely declin'd in what I writ to him, the
setting down any Number of such Chymicall Experiments, as, by being
very elaborate or tedious, would either require much skill, or exercise
his patience. And yet that this sort of Experiments is exceedingly
Numerous, and might more than a little inrich the History of Colours,
those that are vers'd in Chymical processes, will, I presume, easily
allow me.
And (Lastly) for as much as I have occasion more than once in my
several Writings to treat either porposely or incidentally of matters
relating to Colours; I did not, perhaps, conceive my self oblig'd, to
deliver in one Treatise all that I would say concerning that subject.
But to conclude, by summing up what I would say concerning what I
have and what I have not done, in the following Papers; I shall not (_on
the one side_) deny, that considering that I pretended not to write an
accurate Treatise of Colours, but an Occasional Essay to acquaint a
private friend with what then occurrd to me of the things I had thought
or try'd concerning them; I might presume I did enough for once, if I
did clearly and faithfully set down, though not all the Experiments I
could, yet at least such a variety of them, that an attentive Reader that
shall consider the Grounds on which they have been made, and the
hints that are purposely (though dispersedly) couched in them, may
easily compound them, and otherwise vary them, so as very much to
increase their Number. And yet (_on the other side_) I am so sensible
both of how much I have, either out of necessity or choice, left undone,
and of the fruitfullness of the subject I have begun to handle; that

though I had performed far more then 'tis like many Readers will judge
I have, I should yet be very free to let them apply to my Attempts that
of Seneca, where having spoken of the Study of Natures Mysteries, and
Particularly of the Cause of Earth-Quakes, he subjoins.[1] _Nulla res
consummata est dum incipit. Nec in hac tantum re omnium maxima ac
involutissimá, in quâ etiam cum multum actum erit, omnis ætas, quod
agat inveniet; sed in omni alio Negotio, longè semper à perfecto fuere
Principia._
[1] L. Annæ Senecæ Natur. Quest. l. 6. c. 5.
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_Friendly Reader,_
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