And whatever intellectual results may be in
modern days obtained by regarding this effluence only as a motion of
vibration, every formative human art hitherto, and the best states of
human happiness and order, may have depended on the apprehension of its
mystery (which is certain,) and of its personality, which is probable.
90. Of its influence on the formative arts, I have a few words to say
separately: my present business is only to interpret, as we are now
sufficiently enabled to do, the external symbols of the myth under which
it was represented by the Greeks as a goddess of counsel, taken first
into that breast of their supreme Deity, then created out of his
thoughts, and abiding closely beside him; always sharing and consummating
his power.
91. And in doing this we have first to note the meaning of the principal
epithet applied to Athena, "Glaukopis," "with eyes full of light," the
first syllable being connected, by its root, with words signifying sight,
not with words signifying color. As far as I can trace the color
perception of the Greeks, I find it all founded primarily on the degree
of connection between color and light; the most important fact to them in
the color of red being its connection with fire and sunshine; so that
"purple" is, in its original sense, "fire-color," and the scarlet or
orange, of dawn, more than any other fire-color.
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