e._ the following rays of coloured light, we shall produce white
light, red and greenish-yellow, orange and Prussian blue, yellow and
indigo blue, greenish-yellow and violet. All those pairs of colours that
unite to produce white are termed complementary colours. That is, one is
complementary to the other. Thus if in white light you suppress any one
coloured strip of rays, which, mingled uniformly with all the rest of
the spectral rays, produces the white light, then that light no longer
remains white, but is tinged with some particular tint. Whatever colour
is thus suppressed, a particular other tint then pervades the residual
light, and tinges it. That tint which thus makes its appearance is the
one which, with the colour that was suppressed, gave white light, and
the one is complementary to the other. Thus white can always be
compounded of two tints, and these two tints are complementary colours.
But it is important to remark here that I am now speaking of rays of
coloured light proceeding to and striking the eye; for a question like
this might be asked: "You say that blue and yellow are complementary
colours, and together they produce white, but if we mix a yellow and a
blue paint or dye we have as the result a green colour.
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