people appear to prefer bright, pure
colors when presented to them in small areas, red and blue being
the favourites. Certain data have been accumulated regarding the
physiological effect and psychological value of different colors, but
this order of research is in its infancy, and we shall have recourse,
therefore, to theory, in the absence of any safer guide.

One of the theories which may be said to have justified itself in
practice in a different field is that upon which is based Delsarte's
famous art of expression. It has schooled some of the finest actors
in the world, and raised others from mediocrity to distinction. The
Delsarte system is founded upon the idea that man is a triplicity of
physical, emotional, and intellectual qualities or attributes, and
that the entire body and every part thereof conforms to, and expresses
this triplicity. The generative and digestive region corresponds with
the physical nature, the breast with the emotional, and the head
with the intellectual; "below" represents the nadir of ignorance and
dejection, "above" the zenith of wisdom and spiritual power.
This seems a natural, and not an arbitrary classification, having
interesting confirmations and correspondencies, both in the outer
world of form, and in the inner world of consciousness. Moreover, it
is in accord with that theosophic scheme derived from the ancient and
august wisdom of the East, which longer and better than any other
has withstood the obliterating action of slow time, and is even now
renascent. Let us therefore attempt to classify the colors of the
spectrum according to this theory, and discover if we can how nearly
such a classification is conformable to reason and experience.

The red end of the spectrum, being lowest in vibratory rate, would
correspond to the physical nature, proverbially more sluggish than the
emotional and mental. The phrase "like a red rag to a bull," suggests
a relation between the color red and the animal consciousness
established by observation. The "low-brow" is the dear lover of the
red necktie; the "high-brow" is he who sees violet shadows on the
snow. We "see red" when we are dominated by ignoble passion. Though
the color green is associated with the idea of jealousy, it is
associated also with the idea of sympathy, and jealousy in the last
analysis is the fear of the loss of sympathy; it belongs, at all
events to the mediant, or emotional group of colors; while blue and
violet are p